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TWELVE 



LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN, 



ON 



VARIOUS IMPORTANT SUBJECTS. 



BY 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
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REVISED EDITION. 



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NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
549 AND 551 BROADWAY. 

1879. 



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COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1879. 



LC Control Number 




tm P 96 027368 



TO 



LYMAN BEECHEE, D. D. 

To you I owe more than to any other living being* In 
childhood you were my Parent; in later life, my Teacher; 
in manhood, my Companion. To your affectionate vigilance I 
owe my principles, my knowledge, and that I am a Minister 
of the Gospel of Christ. For whatever profit they derive from 
this little Book, the young will be indebted to yon. 




PEEFACE. 



This volume is the eldest-born of my books. It dates from 
1844, and originally contained only the first seven Lectures. 

The Lectures were delivered on successive Sunday nights; 
the church was crowded during the series, — a thing that sel- 
dom happened during my Western life. Indianapolis in 1844 
contained about four thousand inhabitants,* and had not less 
than twelve churches of eight different denominations. The 
audiences of the Second Presbyterian Church, of which I was 
pastor, did not average five hundred in number during the eight 
years of my settlement. But five hundred was regarded as a 
large audience. 

The Lectures were written, each one during the week preced- 
ing the day of its delivery. I well remember the enjoyment 
which I had in their preparation. They were children of early 
enthusiasm. I can see before me now, as plainly as then, the 
room which in our little ten-foot home served at once as parlor, 
study, and bedroom ; and the writing-chair, the place by the 
window, and the skeleton bookcase, with a few books scattered 
on solitary shelves, like a handful of people in church on a rainy 
day. 

As soon as their publication was determined upon, I sat down 
to prepare them for the press. " Now," thought I, "it will be right 
to see what other authors have said on these subjects. Having first 
done the best I could, it will be fair to improve by hints from 

* It now numbers from sixty to seventy thousand. 



XVI PEEFACE, 

others." Dr. Isaac Barrow's sermons had long been fayorites 
of mine. I was fascinated by the exhaustive thoroughness of his 
treatment of subjects, by a certain calm and homely dignity, and 
by his marvellous procession of adjectives. Ordinarily, adjectives 
are the parasites of substantives, — courtiers that hide or smother 
the king with blandishments, — but in Barrow's hands they be- 
came a useful and indeed quite respectable element of composi- 
tion. Considering my early partiality for Barrow, I have always 
regarded it a wonder that I escaped so largely from the snares 
and temptations of that rhetorical demon, the Adjective. 

Barrow has four sermons upon " Industry." I began reading 
them. Before half finishing the first one, I found that he had 
said everything I had thought of and a good deal more. In 
utter disgust I threw my manuscript across the room and saw it 
slide under the bookcase; and there it would have remained, 
had not my wife pulled it forth. After many weeks, however, I 
crept back to it, led by this curious encouragement. A young 
mechanic in my parish was reading with enthusiasm a volume of 
lectures to young men, then just published. Every time I met 
him he was eloquent with their praise. At length, by his per- 
suasion, I consented to read them, and soon opened my eyes 
with amazement. After going through one or two of them, I 
said, " If these lectures can do good, I am sure mine may take 
their chance ! " I resumed their preparation, — but I kept Bar- 
row shut up on the shelf ! 

A young man, foreman in the printing-office of the State Jour- 
nal, requested me to allow him to publish the Lectures, as the 
means of setting him up as a publisher. The effect, however, 
was just the reverse. Being without experience or capital, an 
edition of three thousand crushed him ; and the lectures went 
to John P. Jewett, of Boston. 

The book has had, in all, an extraordinary company of pub- 
lishers : , first, Thomas B. Cutler, of Indianapolis ; then John P. 
Jewett, of Boston; then Brooks Brothers, of Salem, Mass.; 
then Derby and Jackson, of New York ; then Ticknor and Fields, 
of Boston; then J. B. Ford & Co., of New York ; and finally 
I). Appleton & Co. It has had a wide circulation in foreign 
lands, and I hope may yet find a field of further usefulness at 



PREFACE. 



XVll 



home. My present English publishers are Messrs. Thomas Nel- 
son and Sons of Edinburgh and London, whose rights I trust 
may be courteously observed by the trade there, which I regret 
to say has not been the case with others of my books in their 
hands. 

HENRY WARD BEEOHER. 





PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



Having watched the courses of those who seduce the young, — 
their arts, their blandishments, their pretences ; having witnessed 
the beginning and consummation of ruin, almost in the same 
year, of many young men, naturally well disposed, whose down- 
fall began with the appearances of innocence, — I felt an earnest 
desire, if I could, to raise the suspicion of the young, and to 
direct their reason to the arts by which they are with such facility 
destroyed. 

I ask every young man who may read this book not to sub- 
mit his judgment to mine, not to hate because I denounce, nor 
blindly to follow me ; but to weigh my reasons, that he may 
form his own judgment. I only claim the place of a companion ; 
and that I may gain his ear, I have sought to present truth in 
those forms which best please the young ; and though I am not 
without hope of satisfying the aged and the wise, my whole 
thought has been to carry ivith me the intelligent sympathy of 
young men. 

Indianapolis. 1845. 





PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



It is proper to remark, that many of the statements in these 
Lectures, which may seem severe or overdrawn in New England, 
are literally true in the West. Insensibility to public indebted- 
ness, gambling among the members of the bar, the ignoble arts 
of politicians, — I know not if such things are found at the 
East ; but within one year past an edition of three thousand 
copies of these Lectures has been distributed through the West, 
and it has been generally noticed in the papers, and I have never 
heard objections from any quarter that the canvas has been too 
strongly colored. 

Indianapolis, 1846. 




CONTENTS. 



Page 

I. Industry and Idleness 1 

II. Twelve Causes of Dishonesty . . . - * 28 

III. Six Warnings 52 

IV. Portrait Gallery ...... 72 

V. Gamblers and Gambling 90 

VI The Strange Woman - . . . . 124 

VII. Popular Amusements 160 

VIII. Practical Hints . 189 

IX. Profane Swearing 219 

X. Vulgarity 23G 

XL Happiness 256 

XH. Temperance ... ... 281 





Lectuees to Youkg Mek 



LECTUEE I. 
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 

"Give us this day our daily bread." — Matt. vi. 11. 

"This we commanded you, that if any "would not work, 
neither should he eat. for we hear that there are some 
which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but 
are busybodies. now them that are such we command and 
exhort by our lord jesus christ, that with quietness they 

WORK, AND EAT THEIR OWN BREAD." — 2 Thess, iii. 10-12. 

!HE bread which we solicit of God, he gives 
us through our own industry. Prayer 
sows it, and Industry reaps it. 

As industry is habitual activity in some 
useful pursuit, so not only inactivity, but also all efforts 
without the design of usefulness, are of the nature of 
idleness. The supine sluggard is no more indolent than 
the bustling do-nothing. Men may walk much, and read 
much, and talk much, and pass the day without an unoc- 
cupied moment, and yet be substantially idle ; because 
industry requires, at least, the intention of usefulness. 
But gadding, gazing, lounging, mere pleasure-mongering, 
reading for the relief of ennui, — these are as useless as 
sleeping, or dozing, or the stupidity of a surfeit. 




2 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

There are many grades of idleness, and veins of it 
run through the most industrious life. We shall in- 
dulge in some descriptions of the various classes of 
idlers, and leave the reader to judge, if he be an indo- 
lent man, to which class he belongs. 

1. The lazy man. He is of a very ancient pedigree, 
for his family is minutely described by Solomon : How 
long wilt thou sleep, sluggard ? when wilt thou arise 
out of thy sleep ? This is the language of impatience ; 
the speaker has been trying to awaken him, — pulling, 
pushing, rolling him over, and shouting in his ear ; but 
all to no purpose. He soliloquizes whether it is possi- 
ble for the man ever to wake up ! At length the sleeper 
drawls out a dozing petition to be let alone : Yet a 
little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands 
to sleep ; and the last words confusedly break into a 
snore, — that somnolent lullaby of repose. Long ago 
the birds have finished their matins, the sun has ad- 
vanced full high, the dew has gone from the grass, and 
the labors of industry are far in progress, when our 
sluggard, awakened by his very efforts to maintain 
sleep, slowly emerges to perform life's great duty of 
feeding, with him second only in importance to sleep. 
And now, well rested and suitably nourished, surely he 
will abound in labor. Nay, the sluggard 'will not plough 
by reason of the cold. It is yet early spring ; there is 
ice in the North, and the winds are hearty ; his tender 
skin shrinks from exposure, and he waits for milder 
days, envying the residents of tropical climates, where 
cold never comes and harvests wave spontaneously. 
He is valiant at sleeping and at the trencher ; but 
for other courage, the slothfid man saith, There is a 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 3 

lion without ; I shall be slain in the street. He lias not 
been out to see ; but he heard a noise, and resolutely 
betakes himself to prudence. Under so thriving a 
manager, so alert in the morning, so busy through the 
day, and so enterprising, we might anticipate the thrift 
of his husbandry. / ivent by the field of the slothful, and 
by the vineyard of the man void of understanding ; and 
lo ! it was all groivn over ivith thorns, and nettles had 
covered the face thereof and the stone vjall thereof was 
broken down. To complete the picture, only one thing 
more is wanted, — a description of his house, — and 
then we should have, at one view, the lazy man, his 
farm and house. Solomon has given us that also : By 
much slothfulness the building decayeth ; and through 
idleness of the hands the house clroppeth through. Let 
all this be put together, and possibly some reader may 
find an unpleasant resemblance to his own affairs. 

He sleeps long and late, he wakes to stupidity, with 
indolent eyes sleepily rolling over neglected work, neg- 
lected because it is too cold in spring, and too hot in 
summer, and too laborious at all times, — a great cow- 
ard in danger, and therefore very blustering in safety. 
His lands run to waste, his fences are dilapidated, his 
crops chiefly of weeds and brambles ; a shattered house, 
the side leaning over as if wishing, like its owner, to 
lie down to sleep; the chimney tumbling down, the 
roof breaking in, with moss and grass sprouting in its 
crevices ; the well without pump or windlass, a trap 
for their children. This is the very castle of indolence. 

2. Another idler as useless, but vastly more active, 
than the last, attends closely to every one's business 
except his own. His wife earns the children's bread 



4 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

and his, procures her own raiment and his ; she pro- 
cures the wood, she procures the water, while he, with 
hands in his pocket, is busy watching the building of a 
neighbor's barn, or advising another how to trim and 
train his vines ; or he has heard of sickness in a friend's 
family, and is there to suggest a hundred cures, and to 
do everything but to help ; he is a spectator of shooting- 
matches, a stickler for a ring and fair play at every 
fight. He knows all the stories of all the families that 
live in the town. If he can catch a stranger at the 
tavern in a rainy day, he pours out a strain of informa- 
tion, a pattering of words as thick as the rain-drops out 
of doors. He has good advice to everybody, how to 
save, how to make money, how to do everything ; he 
can tell the saddler about his trade ; he gives advice to 
the smith about his work, and goes over with him when 
it is forged to see the carriage-maker put it on • suggests 
improvements, advises this paint or that varnish, criti- 
cises the finish, or praises the trimmings. He is a vio- 
lent reader of newspapers, almanacs, and receipt-books ; 
and with scraps of history and mutilated anecdotes, he 
faces the very schoolmaster, and gives up only to the 
volubility of the oily village lawyer : few have the hardi- 
hood to match Mm, 

And thus every day he bustles through his multi- 
farious idleness, and completes his circle of visits as 
regularly as the pointers of a clock visit each figure on 
the dial-plate ; but alas ! the clock forever tells man 
the useful lesson of time passing steadily away and 
returning never ; but what useful thing do these busy, 
buzzing idlers perform ? 

3. We introduce another idler. He follows no 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 5 

vocation; he only follows those who do. Sometimes 
he sweeps along the streets with consequential gait, 
sometimes perfumes it with wasted odors of tobacco. 
He also haunts sunny benches or breezy piazzas. His 
business is to see; his desire to be seen, and no one 
fails to see him, — so gaudily dressed, his hat sitting 
aslant upon a wilderness of hair, like a bird half 
startled from its nest, and every thread arranged to pro- 
voke attention. He is a man of honor ; not that he 
keeps his word or shrinks from meanness. He de- 
frauds his laundress, his tailor, and his landlord. He 
drinks and smokes at other men's expense. He gam- 
bles and swears, and fights — when he is too drunk to 
be afraid ; but still he is a man of honor, for he has 
whiskers and looks fierce, wears mustachios, and says, 
Upon my honor, sir ; Do you doubt my honor, sir ? 

Thus he appears by day: by night he does not 
appear ; he may be dimly seen flitting ; his voice may 
be heard loud in the carousal of some refection-cellar, 
or above the songs and uproar of a midnight return, 
and home staggering. 

4. The next of this brotherhood excites our pity. 
He began life most thriftily ; for his rising family he 
was gathering an ample subsistence ; but, involved in 
other men's affairs, he went down in their ruin. Late 
in life he begins once more, and at length, just secure 
of an easy competence, his ruin is compassed again. 
He sits down quietly under it, complains of no one, 
envies no one, refuseth the cup, and is even more pure 
in morals than in better days. He moves on from day 
to day, as one who walks under a spell : it is the spell 
of despondency which nothing can disenchant or arouse. 



6 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

He neither seeks work nor refuses it. He wanders 
among men a dreaming gazer, poorly clad, always kind, 
always irresolute, able to plan nothing for himself nor 
to execute what others have planned for him. He lives 
and he dies, a discouraged man, and the most harmless 
and excusable of all idlers. 

5. I have not mentioned the fashionable idler, whose 
riches defeat every object for which God gave him 
birth. He has a fine form and manly beauty, and the 
chief end of life is to display them. With notable 
diligence he ransacks the market for rare and curious 
fabrics, for costly seals and chains and rings. A coat 
poorly fitted is the unpardonable sin of his creed. He 
meditates upon cravats, employs a profound discrimina- 
tion in selecting a hat or a vest, and adopts his conclu- 
sions upon the tastefulness of a button or a collar with 
the deliberation of a statesman. Thus caparisoned, he 
saunters in fashionable galleries, or flaunts in stylish 
equipage, or parades the streets with simpering belles, 
or delights their itching ears with compliments of flat- 
tery or with choicely culled scandal. He is a reader of 
fictions, if they be not too substantial, a writer of 
cards and billet-doux, and is especially conspicuous in 
albums. Gay and frivolous, rich and useless, polished 
till the enamel is worn off, his whole life serves only to 
make him an animated puppet of pleasure. He is as 
corrupt in imagination as he is refined in manners ; he 
is as selfish in private as he is generous in public ; and 
even what he gives to another is given for his own sake. 
He worships where fashion worships : to-day at the 
theatre, to-morrow at the church, as either exhibits the 
whitest hand or the most polished actor. A gaudy, 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 7 

active, and indolent butterfly, he flutters without in- 
dustry from flower to flower, until summer closes and 
frosts sting him, and he sinks down and dies, unthought 
of and unremembered. 

6. One other portrait should be drawn of a business 
man, who wishes to subsist by his occupation, while he 
attends to everything else. If a sporting club goes to 
the woods, he must go. He has set his line in every 
hole in the river, and dozed in a summer day under 
every tree along its bank. He rejoices in a riding- 
party, a sleigh-ride, a summer frolic, a winter's glee, 
He is everybody's friend, universally good-natured, 
forever busy where it will do him no good, and remiss 
where his interests require activity. He takes amuse- 
ment for his main business, which other men employ 
as a relaxation ; and the serious labor of life, which 
other men are mainly employed in, he knows only as a 
relaxation. After a few years he fails, his good-nature 
is something clouded ; and as age sobers his buoyancy 
without repairing his profitless habits, he soon sinks to 
a lower grade of laziness and to ruin. - 

It would be endless to describe the wiles of idleness, 
- — how it creeps upon men, how secretly it mingles 
with their pursuits, how much time it purloins from 
the scholar, from the professional man, and from the 
artisan. It steals minutes, it clips off the edges of 
hours, and at length takes possession of days. Where 
it has its will, it sinks and drowns employment ; but 
where necessity or ambition or duty resists such vio- 
lence, then indolence makes labor heavy, scatters the 
attention, puts us to our tasks with wandering thoughts, 
with irresolute purpose, and with dreamy visions. Thus 



8 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

when it may, it plucks out hours and rules over them ; 
and where this may not be, it lurks aroilnd them to im- 
pede the sway of industry, and turn her seeming toils 
to subtle idleness. Against so mischievous an enchant- 
ress we should be duly armed. I shall, therefore, describe 
the advantages of industry and the evils of indolence. 

1. A hearty industry promotes happiness. Some 
men of the greatest industry are unhappy from infe- 
licity of disposition ; they are morose, or suspicious, or 
envious. Such qualities make happiness impossible 
under any circumstances, 

Health is the platform on which all happiness must 
be built. Good appetite, good digestion, and good sleep 
are the elements of health, and industry confers them. 
As use polishes metals, so labor the faculties, until the 
body performs its unimpeded functions with elastic 
cheerfulness and hearty enjoyment. 

Buoyant spirits are an element of happiness, and 
activity produces them ; but they fly away from slug- 
gishness, as fixed air from open wine. Men's spirits 
are like water, which sparkles w T hen it runs, but stag- 
nates in still pools, and is mantled with green, and 
breeds corruption and filth. The applause of conscience, 
the self-respect of pride, the consciousness of indepen- 
dence, a manly joy of usefulness, the consent of every 
faculty of the mind to one's occupation, and their grati- 
fication in it, — these constitute a happiness superior to 
the fever-flashes of vice in its brightest moments. After 
an experience of ages, which has taught nothing different 
from this, men should have learned that satisfaction is 
not the product of excess, or of indolence, or of riches, 
but of industry, temperance, and usefulness. Every vil- 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 9 

Iage has instances which ought to teach young men that 
he who goes aside from the simplicity of nature and 
the purity of virtue, to wallow in excesses, carousals, 
and surfeits, at length misses the errand of his life, 
and, sinking with shattered body prematurely to a dis- 
honored grave, mourns that he mistook exhilaration for 
satisfaction, and abandoned the very home of happiness 
when he forsook the labors of useful industry. 

The poor man with industry is happier than the 
rich man in idleness ; for labor makes the one more 
manly, and riches unmans the other. The slave is 
often happier than the master, who is nearer undone by 
license than his vassal by toil. Luxurious couches, 
plushy carpets from Oriental looms, pillows of eider- 
down, carriages contrived with cushions and springs 
to make motion imperceptible, — is the indolent mas- 
ter of these as happy as the slave that wove the car- 
pet, the Indian who hunted the Northern flock, or the 
servant who drives the pampered steeds? Let those 
who envy the gay revels of city idlers, and pine for 
their masquerades, their routs, and their operas, expe- 
rience for a week the lassitude of their satiety, the 
unarousable torpor of their life when not under a fiery 
stimulus, their desperate ennui and restless somnolency, 
and they would gladly flee from their haunts as from a 
land of cursed enchantment 

2. Industry is the parent of thrift. In the over- 
burdened states of Europe, the severest toil often only 
suffices to make life a wretched vacillation between 
food and famine ; but in America, industry is prosperity. 

Although God has stored the world with an endless 
variety of riches for man's wants, he has made them all 



10 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEK 

accessible only to industry. The food we eat, the rai- 
ment which covers us, the house which protects, must 
be secured by diligence. To tempt man yet more to 
industry, every product of the earth has a susceptibil- 
ity of improvement ; so that man not only obtains the 
gifts of nature at the price of .labor, but these gifts be- 
come more precious as we bestow upon them greater 
skill and cultivation. The wheat and maize which 
crown our ample fields were food fit but for birds, be- 
fore man perfected them by labor. The fruits of the 
forest and the hedge, scarcely tempting to the extrem- 
est hunger, after skill has dealt with them and trans- 
planted them to the orchard and the garden, allure 
every sense with the richest colors, odors, and flavors. 
The world is full of germs which man is set to develop ; 
and there is scarcely an assignable limit to which the 
hand of skill and labor may not bear the powers of 
nature. 

The scheming speculations of the last ten years have 
produced an aversion among the young to the slow ac- 
cumulations of ordinary industry, and fired them with 
a conviction that shrewdness, cunning, and bold ven- 
tures are a more manly way to wealth. There is a 
swarm of men, bred in the heats of adventurous times, 
whose thoughts scorn pence and farthings, and who 
humble themselves to speak of dollars : hundreds and 
thousands are their words. They are men of great oper- 
ations. Forty thousand dollars is a moderate profit of 
a single speculation. They mean to own the bank, 
and to look down before they die upon Astor and 
Girard. The young farmer becomes almost ashamed 
to meet his schoolmate, whose stores line whole streets, 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 11 

whose stocks are in every bank and company, and 
whose increasing money is already wellnigh inestimable. 
But if the butterfly derides the bee in summer, he was 
never known to do it in the lowering days of autumn. 

Every few years commerce has its earthquakes, and 
the tall and toppling warehouses which haste ran up 
are first shaken down. The hearts of men fail them 
for fear ; and the suddenly rich, made more suddenly 
poor, fill the land with their loud laments. But noth- 
ing strange has happened. When the whole story of 
commercial disasters is told, it is only found out that 
they who slowly amassed the gains of useful industry 
built upon a rock, and they who flung together the 
imaginary millions of commercial speculations built 
upon the sand. When times grew dark, and the winds 
came, and the floods descended and beat upon them 
both, the rock sustained the one, and the shifting sand 
let down the other. If a young man has no higher 
ambition in life than riches, industry — plain, rugged 
brown-faced, homely-clad, old-fashioned industry — 
must be courted. Young men are pressed with a most 
unprofitable haste. They wish to reap before they 
have ploughed or sown. Everything is driving at such 
a rate that they have become giddy. Laborious occupa- 
tions are avoided. Money is to be earned in genteel 
leisure, with the help of fine clothes, and by the soft 
seductions of smooth hair and luxuriant whiskers. 

Parents, equally wild, foster the delusion. Shall the 
promising lad be apprenticed to his uncle, the black- 
smith? The sisters think the blacksmith so very 
smutty; the mother shrinks from the ungentility of 
his swarthy labor ; the father, weighing the matter pru- 



12 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

dentially deeper, finds that a whole life had been spent 
in earning the uncle's property. These sagacious par- 
ents, wishing the tree to bear its fruit before it has 
ever blossomed, regard the long delay of industrious 
trades as a fatal objection to them. The son, then, 
must be a rich merchant, or a popular lawyer, or a bro- 
ker ; and these only as the openings to speculation. 

Young business men are often educated in two very 
unthrifty species of contempt, — a contempt for small 
gains, and a contempt for hard labor. To do one's own 
errands, to wheel one's own barrow, to be seen with a 
bundle, bag, or burden, is disreputable. Men are so 
sharp nowadays that they can compass by their 
shrewd heads what their fathers used to do with their 
heads and hands. 

3. Industry gives character and credit to the young. 
The reputable portions of society have maxims of pru- 
dence by which the young are judged and admitted to 
their good opinion. Does he regard his word ? Is he 
industrious ? Is he economical ? Is he free from im- 
moral habits ? The answer which a young man's con- 
duct gives to these questions settles his reception among 
good men. Experience has shown that the other good 
qualities of veracity, frugality, and modesty are apt to 
be associated with industry. A prudent man would 
scarcely be persuaded that a listless, lounging fellow 
would be economical or trustworthy. An employer 
would judge wisely that, where there was little regard 
for time or for occupation, there would be as little, 
upon temptation, for honesty or veracity. Pilferings 
of the till and robberies are fit deeds for idle clerks 
and lazy apprentices. Industry and knavery are some- 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 13 

times found associated ; but men wonder at it as at a 
strange thing. The epithets of society which betoken 
its experience are all in favor of industry. Thus the 
terms, " a hard-working man/' " an industrious man/' " a 
laborious artisan," are employed to mean an honest man, 
a trusticorthy man. 

I may here, as well as anywhere, impart the secret 
of what is called good and had luck. There are men 
who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite 
against them, bemoan in the poverty of a wretched old 
age the misfortunes of their lives. Luck forever ran 
against them, and for others. One, with a good pro- 
fession, lost his luck in the river, where he idled away 
his time a-fishing when he should have been in the 
office. Another, with a good trade, perpetually burnt 
up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his 
customers to leave him. Another, with a lucrative 
business, lost his luck by amazing diligence at every- 
thing but his business. Another, who steadily fol- 
lowed his trade, as steadily followed his bottle. An- 
other, who was honest and constant to his work, erred by 
perpetual misjudgments, — he lacked discretion. Hun- 
dreds lose their luck by indorsing, by sanguine specula- 
tions, by trusting fraudulent men, and by dishonest 
gains. A man never has good luck who has a bad 
wife. I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, 
prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly hon- 
est, who complained of bad luck. A good character, 
good habits, and iron industry are impregnable to the 
assaults of all the ill luck that fools ever dreamed of. 
But when I see a tatterdemalion creeping out of a 
grocery late in the forenoon, with his hands stuck into 



14 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

his pockets, the rim of his hat turned up, and the 
crown knocked in, I know he has had bad luck ; for 
the worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, or a 
tippler. 

4. Industry is a substitute for genius. Where one 
or more faculties exist in the highest state of devel- 
opment and activity, — as the faculty of music in 
Mozart, invention in Fulton, ideality in Milton, — we 
call their possessor a genius. But a genius is usually 
understood to be a creature of such rare facility of 
mind, that he can do anything without labor. Accord- 
ing to the popular notion, he learns without study, and 
knows without learning. He is eloquent -without prep- 
aration, exact without calculation, and profound with- 
out reflection. While ordinary men toil for knowledge 
by reading, by comparison, and by minute research, a 
genius is supposed to receive it as the mind receives 
dreams. His mind is like a vast cathedral, through 
whose colored windows the sunlight streams, painting 
the aisles with the varied colors of brilliant pictures. 
Such minds may exist. 

So far as my observations have ascertained the spe- 
cies, they abound in academies, colleges, and Thespian 
societies, in village debating-clubs, in coteries of 
young artists, and among young professional aspirants. 
They are to be known by a reserved air, excessive sen- 
sitiveness, and utter indolence ; by very long hair, and 
very open shirt-collars ; by the reading of much 
wTetched poetry, and the writing of much yet more 
wretched ; by being very conceited, very affected, very 
disagreeable, and very useless ; — beings whom no man 
wants for friend, pupil, or companion. 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 15 

The occupations of the great man and of the com- 
mon man are necessarily, for the most part, the same ; 
for the business of life is made up of minute affairs, re- 
quiring only judgment and diligence. A high order of 
intellect is required for the discovery and defence of 
truth ; but this is an unfrequent task. Where the ordi- 
nary wants of life once require recondite principles, 
they will need the application of familiar truths a 
thousand times. Those who enlarge the bounds of 
knowledge, must push out with bold adventure beyond 
the common walks of men. But only a few pioneers 
are needed for the largest armies, and a few profound 
men in each occupation may herald the advance of all 
the business of society. The vast bulk of men are re- 
quired to discharge the homely duties of life ; and they 
have less need of genius than of intellectual industry 
and patient enterprise. Young men should observe that 
those who take the honors and emoluments of mechani- 
cal crafts, of commerce, and of professional life are 
rather distinguished for a sound judgment and a close 
application, than for a brilliant genius. In the ordinary 
business of life, industry can do anything which genius 
can do, and very many things which it cannot. Genius 
is usually impatient of application, irritable, scornful of 
men's dulness, squeamish at petty disgusts: it loves 
a conspicuous place, short work, and a large reward ; it 
loathes the sweat of toil, the vexations of life, and the 
dull burden of care. 

Industry has a firmer muscle, is less annoyed by de- 
lays and repulses, and, like water, bends itself to the 
shape of the soil over which it flows ; and, if checked, 
will not rest, but accumulates, and mines a passage be- 



16 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

neath, or seeks a side-race, or rises above and overflows 
the obstruction. What genius performs at one im- 
pulse, industry gains by a succession of blows. In 
ordinary matters they differ only in rapidity of exe- 
cution, and are upon one level before men, — who see 
the result but not the process. 

It is admirable to know that those things which, in 
skill, in art, and in learning, the world has been unwill- 
ing to let die, have not only been the conceptions of 
genius, but the products of toil. The masterpieces of 
antiquity, as well in literature as in art, are known to 
have received their extreme finish from an almost 
incredible continuance of labor upon them. I do not 
remember a book in all the departments of learning, nor 
a scrap in literature, nor a work in all the schools of 
art, from which its author has derived a permanent re- 
nown, that is not known to have been long and patient- 
ly elaborated. Genius needs industry, as much as 
industry needs genius. If only Milton's imagination 
could have conceived his visions, his consummate in- 
dustry only could have carved the immortal lines which 
enshrine them. If only Newton's mind could reach 
out to the secrets of nature, even his could only do it 
by the homeliest toil. The works of Bacon are not mid- 
summer-night dreams, but, like coral islands, they have 
risen from the depths of truth, and formed their broad 
surfaces above the ocean by the minutest accretions of 
persevering labor. The conceptions of Michael Angelo 
would have perished like a night's fantasy, had not 
his industry given them permanence. 

From enjoying the pleasant walks of industry we 
turn reluctantly to explore the paths of indolence. 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 17 

All degrees of indolence incline a man to rely upon 
others and not upon himself, to eat their bread and 
not his own. His carelessness is somebody's loss ; his 
neglect is somebody's downfall ; his promises are a per- 
petual stumbling-block to all who trust them. If he 
borrows, the article remains borrowed ; if he begs and 
gets, it is as the letting out of waters, — no one knows 
when it will stop. He spoils your work, disappoints 
your expectations, exhausts your patience, eats up 
your substance, abuses your confidence, and hangs a 
dead weight upon all your plans ; and the very best 
thing an honest man can do with a lazy man is to get 
rid of him. Solomon says, Bray a fool in a mortar among 
wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart 
from him. He does not mention what kind of a fool he 
meant ; but as he speaks of a fool by pre-eminence, I 
take it for granted he meant a lazy man ; and I am the 
more inclined to the opinion, from another expression 
of his experience : As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke 
to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him. 

Indolence is a great spendthrift. An indolently in- 
clined young man can neither make nor keep property. 
I have high authority for this : He also that is slothful 
in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. 

When Satan would put ordinary men to a crop of 
mischief, like a wise husbandman he clears the ground 
and prepares it for seed; but he finds the idle man 
already prepared, and he has scarcely the trouble of 
sowing ; for vices, like weeds, ask little strewing, ex- 
cept what the wind gives their ripe and winged seeds, 
shaking and scattering them all abroad. Indeed, lazy 
men may fitly be likened to a tropical prairie, over 



18 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

which the wind of temptation perpetually blows, drift- 
ing every vagrant seed from hedge and hill, and which, 
without a moment's rest through all the year, waves 
its rank harvest of luxuriant weeds. 

First, the imagination will be haunted with unlawful 
visitants. Upon the outskirts of towns are shattered 
houses abandoned by reputable persons. They are not 
empty, because all the day silent ; thieves, vagabonds, 
and villains haunt them, in joint possession with rats, 
bats, and vermin. Such are idle men's imaginations, — 
full of unlawful company. 

The imagination is closely related to the passions, 
and fires them with its heat. The day-dreams of indo- 
lent youth glow each hour with warmer colors and 
bolder adventures. The imagination fashions scenes 
of enchantment in which the passions revel, and it 
leads them out, in shadow at first, to deeds which soon 
they will seek in earnest. The brilliant colors of far- 
away clouds are but the colors of the storm ; the sala- 
cious day-dreams of indolent men, rosy at first and 
distant, deepen every day darker and darker to the 
color of actual evil. Then follows the blight of every 
habit. Indolence promises without redeeming the 
pledge ; a mist of forgetfulness rises up and obscures 
the memory of vows and oaths. The negligence of 
laziness breeds more falsehoods than the cunning of 
the sharper. As poverty waits upon the steps of in- 
dolence, so upon such poverty brood equivocations, sub- 
terfuges, lying denials. Falsehood becomes the instru- 
ment of every plan. Negligence of truth, next occa- 
sional falsehood, then wanton mendacity, — these three 
strides traverse the whole road of lies. 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 19 

Indolence as surely runs to dishonesty as to lying. 
Indeed they are but different parts of the same road, 
and not far apart. In directing the conduct of the 
Ephesian converts, Paul says, Let him that stole steal 
no more ; but rather let him labor, working with his hands 
the thing which is good. The men who were thieves 
were those who had ceased to work. Industry was the 
road back to honesty. When stores are broken open, 
the idle are first suspected. The desperate forgeries 
and swindlings of past years have taught men, upon 
their occurrence, to ferret their authors among the un- 
employed, or among those vainly occupied in vicious 
pleasures. 

The terrible passion for stealing rarely grows upon 
the young, except through the necessities of their idle 
pleasures. Business is first neglected for amusement, 
and amusement soon becomes the only business. The 
appetite for vicious pleasure outruns the means of pro- 
curing it. The theatre, the circus, the card-table, the 
midnight carouse, demand money. When scanty earn- 
ings are gone, the young man pilfers from the till. First, 
because he hopes to repay, and next, because he de- 
spairs of paying ; for the disgrace of stealing ten dol- 
lars or a thousand will be the same, but not their re- 
spective pleasures. Next, he will gamble, since it is 
only another form of stealing. Gradually excluded 
from reputable society, the vagrant takes all the badges 
of vice, and is familiar with her paths, and through 
them enters the broad road of crime. Society precipi- 
tates its lazy members, as water does its filth, and they 
form at the bottom a pestilent sediment, stirred up by 
every breeze of evil into riots, robberies, and murders. 



20 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Into it drains all the filth, and out of it, as from a 
morass, flow all the streams of pollution. Brutal 
wretches, desperately haunted by the law, crawling in 
human filth, brood here their villain schemes, and plot 
mischief to man. Hither resorts the truculent dema- 
gogue, to stir up the fetid filth against his adversaries, 
or to bring up mobs out of this sea which cannot rest, 
but casts up mire and dirt. 

The results of indolence upon communities are as 
marked as upon individuals. In a town of industrious 
people the streets would be clean, houses neat and 
comfortable, fences in repair, school-houses swarming 
with rosy-faced children, decently clad and well be- 
haved. The laws would be respected, because justly 
administered. The church would be thronged with de- 
vout worshippers. The tavern would be silent, and for 
the most part empty, or a welcome retreat for weary 
travellers. Grog-sellers would fail, and mechanics grow 
rich ; labor would be honorable, and loafing a disgrace. 
For music, the people would have the blacksmith's 
anvil and the carpenter's hammer ; and at home, the 
spinning-wheel, and girls cheerfully singing at their 
work. Debts would be seldom paid, because seldom 
made ; but if contracted, no grim officer would be in- 
vited to the settlement. Town officers would be re- 
spectable men, taking office reluctantly, and only for 
the public good. Public days would be full of sports, 
without fighting ; and elections would be as orderly as 
weddings or funerals. 

In a town of lazy men I should expect to find crazy 
houses, shingles and weather-boards knocked off; doors 
hingeless, and all a-creak ; windows stuffed with rags, 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 21 

hats, or pillows. Instead of flowers in summer, and 
warmth in winter, every side of the house would swarm 
with vermin in hot weather, and with starveling pigs 
in cold ; fences would be curiosities of lazy contrivance, 
and gates hung with ropes, or lying flat in the mud. 
Lank cattle would follow every loaded wagon, suppli- 
cating a morsel, with famine in their looks. Children 
would be ragged, dirty, saucy ; the school-house empty ; 
the jail full ; the church silent ; the grog-shops noisy ; 
and the carpenter, the saddler, and the blacksmith 
would do their principal work at taverns. Lawyers 
would reign ; constables flourish, and hunt sneaking 
criminals ; burly justices (as their interests might dic- 
tate) would connive a compromise, or make a commit- 
ment. The peace-officers w T ould wink at tumults, arrest 
rioters in fun, and drink with them in good earnest- 
Good men would be obliged to keep dark, and bad men 
w-ould swear, fight, and rule the town. Public days 
would be scenes of confusion, and end in rows ; elec- 
tions would be drunken, illegal, boisterous, and brutal. 
The young abhor the last results of idleness; but 
they do not perceive that the first steps lead to the last. 
They are in the opening of this career : but with them 
it is genteel leisure, not laziness ; it is relaxation, not 
sloth ; amusement, not indolence. But leisure, relaxa- 
tion, and amusement, when men ought to be usefully 
engaged, are indolence. A specious industry is the 
worst idleness. A young man perceives that the first 
steps lead to the last, with everybody but himself. He 
sees others become drunkards by social tippling ; he 
sips socially, as if he could not be a drunkard. He sees 
others become dishonest by petty habits of fraud ; but 



22 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

will indulge slight aberrations, as if he could not be- 
come knavish. Though others, by lying, lose all char- 
acter, he does not imagine that his little dalliances with 
falsehood will make him a liar. He knows that sala- 
cious imaginations, villanous pictures, harlot snuff-boxes, 
and illicit familiarities have led thousands to her door, 
whose house is the way to hell ; yet he never sighs or 
trembles lest these things should take him to this in- 
evitable way of damnation ! 

In reading these strictures upon indolence, you will 
abhor it in others without suspecting it in yourself. 
While you read, I fear you are excusing yourself; you 
are supposing that your leisure has not been laziness, 
or that, with your disposition, and in your circumstan- 
ces, indolence is harmless. Be not deceived: if you 
are idle, you are on the road to ruin ; and there are few 
stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than 
a road. "While I point out the temptation to indolence, 
scrutinize your course, and pronounce honestly upon 
your risk. 

1. Some are tempted to indolence by their wretched 
training, or, rather, wretched want of it. How many 
families are the most remiss, whose low condition and 
sufferings are the strongest inducement to industry ! 
The children have no inheritance, yet never work ; no 
education, yet are never sent to school. It is hard to 
keep their rags around them, yet none of them will earn 
better raiment. If ever there was a case when a gov- 
ernment should interfere between parent and child, that 
seems to be the one where children are started in life 
with an education of vice. If, in every community, 
three things should be put together, which always work 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 23 

together, the front would be a grog-shop, the middle a 
jail, the rear a gallows; an infernal trinity, and 
the recruits for this three-headed monster are largely- 
drafted from the lazy children of worthless parents. 

2. The children of rich parents are apt to be reared 
in indolence. The ordinary motives to industry are 
wanting, and the temptations to sloth are multiplied. 
Other men labor to provide a support, to amass wealth, 
to secure homage, to obtain power, to multiply the 
elegant products of art. The child of affluence inherits 
these things. Why should he labor who may com- 
mand universal service, whose money subsidizes the in- 
ventions of art, exhausts the luxuries of society, .and 
makes rarities common by their abundance ? Only the 
blind would not see that riches and ruin run in one 
channel to prodigal children. The most rigorous regi- 
men, the most confirmed industry and steadfast moral- 
ity, can alone disarm inherited wealth, and reduce it to 
a blessing. The profligate wretch, who fondly watches 
his father's advancing decrepitude, and secretly curses 
the lingering steps of death (seldom too slow except to 
hungry heirs), at last is overblessed in the tidings that 
the loitering work is done, and the estate his. When 
the golden shower has fallen, he rules as a prince in a 
court of expectant parasites. All the sluices by which 
pleasurable vice drains an estate are opened wide. A 
few years complete the ruin. The hopeful heir, avoided 
by all whom he has helped, ignorant of useful labor, 
and scorning a knowledge of it, fired with an incurable 
appetite for vicious excitement, sinks steadily down, — 
a profligate, a wretch, a villain-scoundrel, a convicted 
felon. Let parents who hate their offspring rear them 



24 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

to hate labor, and to inherit riches, and before long they 
will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and 
damned by its penalty. 

3. Another cause of idleness is found in the secret 
effects of youthful indulgence. The purest pleasures 
lie within the circle of useful occupation. Mere pleas- 
ure, sought outside of usefulness, existing by itself, 
is fraught with poison. When its exhilaration has 
thoroughly kindled the mind, the passions thenceforth 
refuse a simple food ; they crave and require an excite- 
ment higher than any ordinary occupation can give. 
After revelling all night in wine-dreams, or amid the 
fascinations of the dance, or the deceptions of the drama, 
what has the dull store or the dirty shop which can 
continue the pulse at this fever-heat of delight ? The 
face of Pleasure to the youthful imagination is the face 
of an angel, a paradise of smiles, a home of love ; while 
the rugged face of Industry, imbrowned by toil, is dull 
and repulsive : but at the end it is not so. These are 
harlot charms which Pleasure wears. At last, when 
Industry shall put on her beautiful garments, and rest 
in the palace which her own hands have built, Pleas- 
ure, blotched and diseased with indulgence, shall lie 
down and die upon the dung-hill. 

4. Example leefds to idleness. The children of in- 
dustrious parents, at the sight of vagrant rovers seeking 
their sports wherever they will, disrelish labor, and 
envy this unrestrained leisure. At the first relaxation 
of parental vigilance, they shrink from their odious 
tasks. Idleness is begun when labor is a burden, and 
industry a bondage, and only idle relaxation a pleasure. 

The example of political men, office-seekers, and 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 25 

public officers is not usually conducive to industry. 
The idea insensibly fastens upon the mind that great- 
ness and hard labor are not companions. The inexpe- 
rience of youth imagines that great men are men of 
great leisure. They see them much in public, often 
applauded and greatly followed. How disgusting in 
contrast is the mechanic's life ! A tinkering-shop, dark 
and smutty, is the only theatre of his exploits; and 
labor, which covers him with sweat and fills him with 
weariness, brings neither notice nor praise. The am- 
bitious apprentice, sighing over his soiled hands, hates 
his ignoble work; neglecting it, he aspires to better 
things, plots in a caucus, declaims in a bar-room, fights 
in a grog-shop, and dies in a ditch. 

5. But the indolence begotten by venal ambition 
must not be so easily dropped. At those periods of 
occasional disaster, when embarrassments cloud the 
face of commerce, and trade drags heavily, sturdy la- 
borers forsake industrial occupations and petition for 
office. Had I a son able to gain a livelihood by toil, I 
had rather bury him than witness his beggarly suppli- 
cations for office, — sneaking along the path of men's 
passions to gain his advantage, holding in the breath of 
his honest opinions, and breathing feigned words of 
flattery to hungry ears, popular or official, and crawling, 
viler than a snake, through all the unmanly courses by 
which ignoble wretches purloin the votes of the dis- 
honest, the drunken, and the vile. 

The late reverses of commerce have unsettled the 
habits of thousands. Manhood seems debilitated, and 
many sturdy yeomen are ashamed of nothing but la- 
bor. For a farthing-pittance of official salary, for the 



26 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

miserable fees of a constable's office, for the parings and 
perquisites of any deputyship, a hundred men in every 
village rush forward, scrambling, jostling, crowding, 
each more obsequious than the other to lick the hand 
that holds the omnipotent vote or the starveling office. 
The most supple cunning gains the prize. Of the dis- 
appointed crowd a few, rebuked by their sober reflec- 
tions, go back to their honest trade, ashamed and cured 
of office-seeking. But the majority grumble for a day, 
then prick forth their ears, arrange their feline arts, 
and mouse again for another office. The general appe- 
tite for office and disrelish for industrial callings is a 
prolific source of idleness ; and it would be well for the 
honor of young men if they were bred to regard office 
as fit only for those who have clearly shown themselves 
able and willing to support their families without it. 
No office can make a worthless man respectable, and a 
man of integrity, thrift, and religion has name enough 
without badge or office. 

6. Men become indolent through the reverses of 
fortune. Surely, despondency is a grievous tiling and 
a heavy load to bear. To see disaster and wreck in the 
present, and no light in the future, but only storms, 
lurid by the contrast of past prosperity, and growing 
darker as they advance ; to wear a constant expectation 
of woe like a girdle ; to see want at the door, imperi- 
ously knocking, while there is no strength to repel, or 
courage to bear its tyranny ; — indeed, this is dreadful 
enough. But there is a thing more dreadful. It is 
more dreadful if the man is wrecked with his fortune. 
Can anything be more poignant in anticipation than 
one's own self, unnerved, cowed down and slackened to 



INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS. 27 

utter pliancy, and helplessly drifting and driven down 
the troubled sea of life ? Of all things on earth, next 
to his God, a broken man should cling to a courageous 
industry. If it brings nothing back and saves nothing, 
it will save him. To be pressed down by adversity has 
nothing in it of disgrace ; but it is disgraceful to lie 
down under it like a supple dog. Indeed, to stand 
composedly in the storm, amidst its rage and wildest 
devastations, to let it beat over you and roar around 
you, and pass by you, and leave you undismayed, this 
is to be a man. Adversity is the mint in which God 
stamps upon us his image and superscription. In this 
matter men may learn of insects. The ant will repair 
his dwelling as often as the mischievous foot crushes 
it ; the spider will exhaust life itself, before he will live 
without a web ; the bee can be decoyed from his labor 
neither by plenty nor scarcity. If summer be abun- 
dant, it toils none the less ; if it be parsimonious of 
flowers, the tiny laborer sweeps a wider circle, and by 
industry repairs the frugality of the season. Man 
should be ashamed to be rebuked in vain by the spider, 
the ant, and the bee. 

Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall 
stand before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men. 





LECTUEE II. 

TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 

"Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the 
Lord, but also in the sight of men." — 2 Cor. viii. 21. 

£NXY extraordinary circumstances can give 
the appearance of dishonesty to an honest 
man. Usually, not to seem honest is not 
to he so. The quality must not be doubt- 
twilight, lingering between night and day 
and taking hues from both ; it must be daylight, clear 
and effulgent. This is the doctrine of the Bible : 
Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the 
Lord, but also in the sight of men. In general it 
may be said that no one has honesty without dross 
until he has honesty without suspicion. 

We are passing through times upon which the seeds 
of dishonesty have been sown broadcast, and they have 
brought forth a hundred-fold. These times will pass 
away, but like ones will come again. As physicians 
study the causes and record the phenomena of plagues 
and pestilences, to draw from them an antidote against 
their recurrence, so should we leave to another genera- 
tion a history of moral plagues, as the best antidote to 
their recurring malignity. 

Upon a land — capacious beyond measure, whose 
prodigal soil rewards labor with an unharvestable abun- 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 29 

dance of exuberant fruits, occupied by a people signal- 
ized by enterprise and industry — there came a sum- 
mer of prosperity which lingered so long and shone so 
brightly, that men forgot that winter could ever come. 
Each day grew brighter. No reins were put upon the 
imagination. Its dreams passed for realities. Even 
sober men, touched with wildness, seemed to expect a 
realization of Oriental tales. Upon this bright day 
came sudden frosts, storms, and blight. Men awoke 
from gorgeous dreams in the midst of desolation. The 
harvests of years were swept away in a day. The 
strongest firms were rent as easily as the oak by light- 
ning. Speculating companies were dispersed as seared 
leaves from a tree in autumn. Merchants were ruined 
by thousands, clerks turned adrift by ten thousands. 
Mechanics were left in idleness. Farmers sighed over 
flocks and wheat as useless as the stones and dirt. The 
wide sea of commerce was stagnant ; upon the realm of 
industry settled down a sullen lethargy. 

Out of this reverse swarmed an unnumbered host of 
dishonest men, like vermin from a carcass. Banks were 
exploded, or robbed, or fleeced by astounding for- 
geries. Mighty companies, without cohesion, went to 
pieces, and hordes of wretches snatched up every bale 
that came ashore. Cities were ransacked by troops of 
villains. The unparalleled frauds, which sprung like 
mines on every hand, set every man to trembling lest 
the next explosion should be under his own feet. Fi- 
delity seemed to have forsaken men. Many that had 
earned a reputation for sterling honesty were cast so 
suddenly headlong into wickedness, that man shrank 
from man. Suspicion overgrew confidence, and the 



30 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

heart bristled with the nettles and thorns of fear and 
jealousy. Then had almost come to pass the divine de- 
lineation of ancient wickedness : The good man is per- 
ished out of the earth ; and there is none upright among 
men : they all lie in wait for blood ; they hunt every man 
his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both 
hands earnestly, the prince aslceth, and the judge asketh for 
a rewards ; and the great man, he utter eth his mischievous 
desire ; so they ivrap it up. The best of them is as a brier ; 
the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. The 
world looked upon a continent of inexhaustible fertility 
(whose harvest had glutted the markets, and rotted in 
disuse) filled with lamentation, and its inhabitants 
wandering like bereaved citizens among the ruins of an 
earthquake, mourning for children, for houses crushed, 
and property buried forever. 

That no measure might be put to the calamity, the 
Church of God, which rises a stately tower of refuge to 
desponding men, seemed now to have lost its power of 
protection. When the solemn voice of Eeligion should 
have gone over the land, as the call of God to guilty 
man to seek in him their strength, in this time when 
Eeligion should have restored sight to the blind, made 
the lame to walk, and bound up the broken-hearted, 
she was herself mourning in sackcloth. Out of her 
courts came the noise of warring sects ; some contending 
against others with bitter warfare, and some, possessed 
of a demon, wallowed upon the ground, foaming, and 
rending themselves. In a time of panic and disaster 
and distress and crime, the fountain which should have 
been for the healing of men cast up its sediments, and 
gave out a bitter stream of pollution. 



* TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 31 

In every age a universal pestilence has hushed the 
clamor of contention, and cooled the heats of parties ; 
but the greatness of our national calamity seemed only 
to enkindle the fury of political parties. Contentions 
never ran with such deep streams and impetuous cur- 
rents, as amidst the ruin of our industry and prosperity. 
States were greater debtors to foreign nations than 
their citizens were to each other. Both States and citi- 
zens shrunk back from their debts, and yet more dis- 
honestly from the taxes necessary to discharge them. 
The general government did not escape, but lay be- 
calmed, or pursued its course, like a ship, at every fur- 
long touching the rocks or beating against the sands. 
The Capitol trembled with the first waves of a question 
which is yet to shake the whole land. New questions 
of exciting qualities perplexed the realm of legislation 
and of morals. To all this must be added a manifest 
decline of family government ; an increase of the ratio 
of popular ignorance ; a decrease of reverence for law, 
and an effeminate administration of it. Popular tu- 
mults have been as frequent as freshets in our rivers, 
and, like them, have swept over the land with desola- 
tion, and left their filthy slime in the highest places, 
— upon the press, upon the legislature, in the halls of 
our courts, and even upon the sacred bench of jus- 
tice. If unsettled times foster dishonesty, it should 
have flourished among us. And it has. 

Our nation must expect a periodical return of such 
convulsions ; but experience should steadily curtail 
their ravages, and remedy their immoral tendencies. 
Young men have before them lessons of manifold wis- 
dom taught by the severest of masters, — experience. 



32 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

They should be studied, and, that they may be, I shall, 
from this general survey, turn to a specific enumera- 
tion of the causes of dishonesty. 

1. Some men find in their bosom, from the first, a 
vehement inclination to dishonest ways. Knavish pro- 
pensities are inherent, born with the child, and trans- 
missible from parent to son. The children of a sturdy 
thief, if taken from him at birth and reared by hon- 
est men, would, doubtless, have to contend against a 
strongly dishonest inclination. Foundlings and orphans 
under public charitable charge are more apt to become 
vicious than other children. They are usually born of 
low and vicious parents, and inherit their parents' pro- 
pensities. Only the most thorough moral training can 
overrule this innate depravity. 

2. A child naturally fair-minded may become dis- 
honest by parental example. He is early taught to be 
sharp in bargains, and vigilant for every advantage. 
Little is said about honesty, and much upon shrewd 
traffic. A dexterous trick becomes a family anecdote ; 
visitors are regaled with the boy's precocious keenness. 
Hearing the praise of his exploits, he studies craft, and 
seeks parental admiration by adroit knaveries. He is 
taught, for his safety, that he must not range beyond 
the law ; that would be unprofitable. He calculates 
his morality thus : Legal honesty is the best policy ; 
dishonesty, then, is a bad bargain, and therefore wrong ; 
everything is wrong which is unthrifty. "Whatever 
profit breaks no legal statute — though it is gained by 
falsehood, by unfairness, by gloss, through dishonor, 
unkindness, and an unscrupulous conscience — he con- 
siders fair, and says , The law alloivs it. Men may spend 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 33 

a long life without an indictable action and without 
an honest one. No law can reach the insidious ways 
of subtle craft. The law allows and religion forbids 
men to profit by others' misfortunes, to prowl for prey 
among the ignorant, to overreach the simple, to suck 
the last life-drops from the bleeding, to hover over men 
as a vulture over herds, swooping down upon the weak, 
the straggling, and the weary. The infernal craft of 
cunning men turns the law itself to piracy, and works 
outrageous fraud in the hall of courts, by the decision 
of judges, and under the seal of justice. 

3. Dishonesty is learned from one's employers. The 
boy of honest parents and honestly bred goes to a 
trade or a store where the employer practises legal 
frauds. The plain honesty of the boy excites roars of 
laughter among the better taught clerks. The master 
tells them that such blundering truthfulness must be 
pitied; the boy evidently has been neglected, and is 
not to be ridiculed for what he could not help. At 
first, it verily pains the youth's scruples and tinges his 
face to frame a deliberate dishonesty, to finish and to 
polish it. His tongue stammers at a lie ; but the 
example of a rich master, the jeers and gibes of shop- 
mates, with gradual practice, cure all this. He be- 
comes adroit in fleecing customers for his master's sake, 
and equally dexterous in fleecing his master for his 
own sake. 

4. Extravagance is a prolific source of dishonesty. 
Extravagance — which is foolish expense, or expense 
disproportionate to one's means — may be found in all 
grades of society ; but it is chiefly apparent among the 
rich, those aspiring to wealth, and those wishing to be 



34 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

thought affluent. Many a young man cheats his busi- 
ness by transferring his means to theatres, race-courses, 
expensive parties, and to the nameless and numberless 
projects of pleasure. The enterprise of others is baf- 
fled by the extravagance of their family ; for few men 
can make as much in a year as an extravagant woman 
can carry on her back in one winter. Some are am- 
bitious of fashionable society, and will gratify their 
vanity at any expense. This disproportion between 
means and expense soon brings on a crisis. The victim 
is straitened for money ; without it he must abandon 
his rank ; for fashionable society remorselessly rejects 
all butterflies which have lost their brilliant colors. 
Which shall he choose, honesty and mortifying exclu- 
sion or gayety purchased by dishonesty ? The severity 
of this choice sometimes sobers the intoxicated brain, 
and a young man shrinks from the gulf, appalled at the 
darkness of dishonesty. But to excessive vanity high- 
life, with or without fraud, is paradise, and any other 
life purgatory. Here many resort to dishonesty with- 
out a scruple. It is at this point that public senti- 
ment half sustains dishonesty. It scourges the thief 
of necessity, and pities the thief of fashion. 

The struggle with others is on the very ground of 
honor. A wife led from affluence to frigid penury and 
neglect, from leisure and luxury to toil and want; 
daughters, once courted as rich, to be disesteemed when 
poor; — this is the gloomy prospect, seen through a 
magic haze of despondency. Honor, love, and generos- 
ity, strangely bewitched, plead for dishonesty as the 
only alternative to such suffering. But go, young man, 
to your wife ; tell her the alternative ; if she is worthy 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 35 

of you, she will face your poverty with a courage which 
shall shame your fears, and lead you into its wilderness 
and through it, all unshrinking. Many there be who 
went weeping into this desert, and erelong, having 
found in it the fountains of the purest peace, have 
thanked God for the pleasures of poverty. But if your 
wife unmans your resolution, imploring dishonor rather 
than penury, may God pity and help you ! You dwell 
with a sorceress, and few can resist her wiles. 

5. Debt is an inexhaustible fountain of dishonesty. 
The Eoyal Preacher tells us: The borrower is ser- 
vant to the lender. Debt is a rigorous servitude. The 
debtor learns the cunning tricks, delays, concealments, 
and frauds by which slaves evade or cheat their mas- 
ter. He is tempted to make ambiguous statements ; 
pledges, with secret passages of escape ; contracts, with 
fraudulent constructions ; lying excuses and more men- 
dacious promises. He is tempted to elude responsibil- 
ity, to delay settlements, to prevaricate upon the 
terms, to resist equity, and devise specious fraud. 
When the eager creditor would restrain such vagrancy 
by law, the debtor then thinks himself released from 
moral obligation, and brought to a legal game, in which 
it is lawful for the best player to win. He disputes 
true accounts, he studies subterfuges, extorts provo- 
cations delays, and harbors in every nook and corner 
and passage of the law's labyrinth. At length the 
measure is filled up, and the malignant power of debt 
is known. It has opened in the heart every fountain 
of iniquity ; it has besoiled the conscience, it has tar- 
nished the honor, it has made the man a deliberate 
student of knavery, a systematic practitioner of fraud ; 



38 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

it has dragged him through all the sewers of petty pas- 
sions, — anger, hate, revenge, malicious folly, or malig- 
nant shame. When a debtor is beaten at every point, 
and the law will put her screws upon him, there is no 
depth in the gulf of dishonesty into which he will not 
boldly plunge. Some men put their property to the 
flames, assassinate the detested creditor, and end the 
frantic tragedy by suicide or the gallows. Others, in 
view of the catastrophe, have converted all property to 
cash, and concealed it. The law's utmost skill and the 
creditor's fury are alike powerless now; the tree is 
green and thrifty, its roots drawing a copious supply 
from some hidden fountain. 

Craft has another harbor of resort for the piratical 
crew of dishonesty, viz., putting the property out of the 
law's reach by a fraudulent conveyance. Whoever runs 
in debt, and consumes the equivalent of his indebted- 
ness; whoever is fairly liable to damage for broken 
contracts ; whoever by folly, has incurred debts and 
lost the benefit of his outlay ; whoever is legally obliged 
to pay for his malice or carelessness ; whoever by infi- 
delity to public trusts has made his property a just 
remuneration for his defaults ; — whoever of all these, 
or whoever, under any circumstances, puts out of his 
hands property, morally or legally due to creditors, is 
a dishonest man. The crazy excuses which men ren- 
der to their consciences are only such as every villain 
makes who is unwilling to look upon the black face 
of his crimes. 

He who will receive a conveyance of property, know- 
ing it to be illusive and fraudulent, is as wicked as the 
principal ; and as much meaner, as the tool and subordi- 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 37 

nate of villany is meaner than the master who uses 
him. 

If a church, knowing all these facts, or wilfully igno- 
rant of them, allows a member to nestle in the security 
of the sanctuary, then the act of this robber and the 
connivance of the church are but the two parts of one 
crime. 

6. Bankruptcy, although a branch of debt, deserves 
a separate mention. It sometimes crushes a man's 
spirit, and sometimes exasperates it. The poignancy of 
the evil depends much upon the disposition of the 
creditors, and as much upon the disposition of the vic- 
tim. Should they act with the lenity of Christian men, 
and he with manly honesty, promptly rendering up 
whatever satisfaction of debt he has, he may visit 
the lowest places of human adversity, and find there 
the light of good men's esteem, the support of con- 
science, and the sustenance of religion. 

A bankrupt may fall into the hands of men whose 
tender mercies are cruel ; or his dishonest equivocations 
may exasperate their temper and provoke every thorn 
and brier of the law. When men's passions are let 
loose, especially their avarice, whetted by real or imagi- 
nary wrong ; when there is a rivalry among creditors 
lest any one should feast upon the victim more than 
his share, and they all rush upon him like wolves upon 
a wounded deer, dragging him down, ripping him open, 
breast and flank, plunging deep their bloody muzzles to 
reach the heart, and taste blood at the very fountain, — 
is it strange that resistance is desperate and unscrupu- 
lous ? At length the sufferer drags his mutilated car- 
cass aside, every nerve and muscle wrung with pain, 



38 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

and his whole body an instrument of agony. He 
curses the whole inhuman crew with envenomed im- 
precations, and thenceforth, a brooding misanthrope, he 
pays back to society by studied villanies the legal 
wrongs which the relentless justice of a few, or his 
own knavery, has brought upon him. 

7. There is a circle of moral dishonesties practised 
because the law allows them. The very anxiety of 
law to reach the devices of cunning so perplexes its 
statutes with exceptions, limitations, and supplements, 
that, like a castle gradually enlarged for centuries, it 
has its crevices, dark corners, secret holes, and winding 
passages, — an endless harbor for rats and vermin, 
where no trap can catch them. We are villanously 
infested with legal rats and rascals who are able to com- 
mit the most flagrant dishonesties with impunity. They 
can do all of wrong which is profitable, without that 
part which is actionable. The very ingenuity of these 
miscreants excites such admiration of their skill that 
their life is gilded with a specious respectability. Men 
profess little esteem for blunt, necessitous thieves who 
rob and run away ; but for a gentleman who can break 
the whole of God's law so adroitly as to leave man's law 
unbroken, who can indulge in such conservative steal- 
ing that his fellow-men award him a rank among honest 
men for the excessive skill of his dishonesty, — for such 
an one, I fear, there is almost universal sympathy. 

8. Political dishonesty breeds dishonesty of every 
kind. It is possible for good men to permit single sins 
to coexist with general integrity, where the evil is in- 
dulged through ignorance. Once, undoubted Christians 
were slave-traders. They might be while unenlight- 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 39 

ened, but not in our times. A state of mind which 
will intend one fraud will, upon occasions, intend a 
thousand. He that upon one emergency will lie will 
be supplied with emergencies. He that will perjure 
himself to save a friend will do it, in a desperate junct- 
ure, to save himself. The highest Wisdom has in- 
formed us that He that is unjust in the least is unjust 
also in much. Circumstances may withdraw a poli- 
tician from temptation to any but political dishonesty ; 
but under temptation a dishonest politician would be a 
dishonest cashier, — would be dishonest anywhere, in 
anything. The fury which destroys an opponent's 
character would stop at nothing if barriers were thrown 
down. That which is true of the leaders in politics is 
true of subordinates. Political dishonesty in voters 
runs into general dishonesty, as the rotten speck taints 
the whole apple. A community whose politics are 
conducted by a perpetual breach of honesty on both 
sides will be tainted by immorality throughout. Men 
will play the same game in their private affairs which 
they have learned to play in public matters. The guile, 
the crafty vigilance, the dishonest advantage, the cun- 
ning sharpness, the tricks and traps and sly evasions, 
the equivocal promises and unequivocal neglect of 
them, which characterize political action, will equally 
characterize private action. The mind has no kitchen 
to do its dirty work in while the parlor remains clean. 
Dishonesty is an atmosphere; if it comes into one 
apartment it penetrates every one. Whoever will lie 
in politics will lie in traffic. Whoever will slander in 
politics will slander in personal squabbles. A pro- 
fessor of religion who is a dishonest politician is a 



40 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

dishonest Christian. His creed is a perpetual index of 
his hypocrisy. % 

The genius of our government directs the attention 
of every citizen to politics. Its spirit reaches the ut- 
termost bound of society and pervades the whole mass. 
If its channels are slimy with corruption, what limit 
can be set to its malign influence ? The turbulence of 
elections, the virulence of the press,' the desperation of 
bad men, the hopelessness of efforts which are not cun- 
ning but only honest, have driven many conscientious 
men from any concern with politics. This is suicidal. 
Thus the tempest will grow blacker and fiercer. Our 
youth will be caught up in its whirling bosom and 
dashed to pieces, and its hail will break down every 
green thing. At God's house the cure should begin. 
Let the hand of discipline smite the leprous lips which 
shall utter the profane heresy, All is fair in politics. 
If any hoary professor, drunk with the mingled wine 
of excitement, shall tell our youth that a Christian 
man may act in politics by any other rule of morality 
than that of the Bible, and that wickedness performed 
for a party is not as abominable as if done for a man, 
or that any necessity justifies or palliates dishonesty 
in word or deed, let such an one go out of the camp, 
and his pestilent breath no longer spread contagion 
among our youth. No man who loves his country 
should shrink from her side when she groans with 
raging distempers. Let every Christian man stand in 
his place, rebuke every dishonest practice, scorn a 
political as well as a personal lie, and refuse with in- 
dignation to be insulted by the solicitation of an im- 
moral man. Let good men of all parties require hon- 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 41 

esty, integrity, veracity, and morality in politics, and 
there, as powerfully as anywhere else, the requisitions 
of public sentiment will ultimately be felt. 

9. A corrupt public sentiment produces dishonesty. 
A public sentiment in which dishonesty is not disgrace- 
ful, in which bad men are respectable, are trusted, are 
honored, are exalted, is a curse to the young. The 
fever of speculation, the universal derangement of busi- 
ness, the growing laxness of morals, is, to an alarming 
extent, introducing such a state of things. Men of no- 
torious immorality, whose dishonesty is flagrant, whose 
private habits would disgrace the ditch, are powerful 
and popular. I have seen a man stained with every 
sin except those which required courage; into whose 
head I do not think a pure thought has entered for 
forty years, in whose heart an honorable feeling would 
droop for very loneliness ; — in evil he was ripe and 
rotten; hoary and depraved in deed, in word, in his 
present life and in all his past ; evil when by himself, 
and viler among men ; corrupting to the young ; to 
domestic fidelity a recreant, to common honor a traitor, 
to honesty an outlaw, to religion a hypocrite; base 
in all that is worthy of man, and accomplished in what- 
ever is disgraceful ; and yet this wretch could go where 
he would, enter good men's dwellings and purloin 
their votes. Men would curse him, yet obey him ; hate 
him, and assist him ; warn their sons against him, and 
lead them to the polls for him. A public sentiment 
which produces ignominious knaves cannot breed hon- 
est men. 

Any calamity, civil or commercial, which checks the 
administration of justice between man and man, is ruin- 



42 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ous to honesty. The violent fluctuations of business 
cover the ground with rubbish over which men stumble, 
and fill the air with dust in which all the shapes of 
honesty appear distorted. Men are thrown upon un- 
usual expedients, dishonesties are unobserved; those 
who have been reckless and profuse stave off the legiti- 
mate fruits of their folly by desperate shifts. We have 
not yet emerged from a period in which debts were in- 
secure, the debtor legally protected against the rights 
of the creditor ; taxes laid, not by the requirements of 
justice, but for political effect, and lowered to a dishon- 
est insufficiency, and when thus diminished, not col- 
lected ; the citizens resisting their own officers, officers 
resigning at the bidding of the electors, the laws of 
property paralyzed, bankrupt laws built up, and stay- 
laws unconstitutionally enacted, upon which the courts 
look with aversion, yet fear to deny them, lest the wild- 
ness of popular opinion should roll back disdainfully 
upon the bench, to despoil its dignity and prostrate its 
power. General suffering has made us tolerant of gen- 
eral dishonesty ; and the gloom of our commercial dis- 
aster threatens to become the pall of our morals. 

If the shocking stupidity of the public mind to atro- 
cious dishonesties is not aroused, if good men do not 
bestir themselves to drag the young from this foul sor- 
cery, if the relaxed bands of honesty are not tightened 
and conscience intoned to a severer morality, our night 
is at hand, our midnight not far off. Woe to that 
guilty people who sit down upon broken laws, and 
wealth saved by injustice ! Woe to a generation fed 
upon the bread of fraud, whose children's inheritance 
shall be a perpetual memento of their fathers' unright- 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 43 

eousness ; to whom dishonesty shall be made pleasant 
by association with the revered memories of father, 
brother, and friend! 

But when a whole people, united by a common disre- 
gard of justice, conspire to defraud public creditors ; and 
States vie with States in an infamous repudiation of 
just debts, by open or sinister methods ; and nations ex- 
ert their sovereignty to protect and dignify the knavery 
of a Commonwealth, — then the confusion of domes- 
tic affairs has bred a fiend before whose flight honor 
fades away, and under whose feet the sanctity of truth 
and the religion of solemn compacts are stamped down 
and ground into the dirt. Need we ask the causes of 
growing dishonesty among the young, and the increas- 
ing untrustworthiness of all agents, when States are 
seen clothed with the panoply of dishonesty, and na- 
tions put on fraud for their garments ? 

Absconding agents, swindling schemes, and defalca- 
tions, occurring in such melancholy abundance, have at 
length ceased to be wonders, and rank with the com- 
mon accidents of fire and flood. The budget of each 
week is incomplete without its mob and runaway cash- 
ier, its duel and defaulter ; and as waves which roll 
to the shore are lost in those which follow on, so the 
villanies of each week obliterate the record of the last. 

The mania of dishonesty cannot arise from local 
causes ; it is the result of disease in the whole commu- 
nity, an eruption betokening foulness of the blood, 
blotches symptomatic of a disordered system. 

10. Financial agents are especially liable to the 
temptations of dishonesty. Safe merchants and vision- 
ary schemers, sagacious adventurers and rash specu- 



44 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

lators, frugal beginners and retired millionnaires, are 
constantly around them. Every word, every act, every 
entry, every letter, suggests only wealth, — its germ, its 
bud, its blossom, its golden harvest. Its brilliance 
dazzles the sight, its seductions stir the appetites, its 
power fires the ambition, and the soul concentrates its 
energies to obtain wealth, as life's highest and only joy. 

Besides the influence of such associations, direct deal- 
ing in money as a commodity has a peculiar effect 
upon the heart. There is no property between it and 
the mind, no medium to mellow its light. The mind is 
diverted and refreshed by no thoughts upon the quality 
of soils, the durability of structures, the advantages of 
sites, the beauty of fabrics ; it is not invigorated by 
the necessity of labor and ingenuity which the mechanic 
feels, by the invention of the artisan, or the taste of 
the artist. The whole attention falls directly upon 
naked money. The hourly sight of it whets the appe- 
tite, and sharpens it to avarice. Thus with an intense 
regard of riches steals in also the miser's relish of coin, 
■ — that insatiate gazing and fondling, by which seduc- 
tive metal wins to itself all the blandishments of love. 

Those who mean to be rich often begin by imitating 
the expensive courses of those who are rich. They are 
also tempted to venture, before they have means of 
their own, in brilliant speculations. How can a young 
cashier pay the drafts of his illicit pleasures, or procure 
the seed for the harvest of speculation, out of his nar- 
row salary ? Here first begins to work the leaven of 
death. The mind wanders in dreams of gain ; it broods 
over projects of unlawful riches, stealthily at first, and 
then with less reserve ; at last it boldly meditates the 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 45 

possibility of being dishonest and safe. When a man 
can seriously reflect upon dishonesty as a possible and 
profitable thing, he is already deeply dishonest. To a 
mind so tainted will flock stories of consummate craft, 
of effective knavery, of fraud covered by its brilliant 
success. At times the mind shrinks from its own 
thoughts, and trembles to look down the giddy cliff on 
whose edge they poise, or over which they fling them- 
selves like sporting sea-birds. But these imaginations 
will not be driven from the heart where they have 
once nested. They haunt a man's business, visit him 
in dreams, and, vampire-like, fan the slumbers of the 
victim whom they will destroy. In some feverish 
hour, vibrating between conscience and avarice, the 
man staggers to a compromise. To satisfy his con- 
science he refuses to steal ; and to gratify his avarice, 
he borrows the funds, not openly, not of owners, not 
from men, but from the till, the safe, the vault ! 

He resolves to restore the money before discovery 
can ensue, and pocket the profits. Meanwhile, false 
entries are made, perjured oaths are sworn, forged papers 
are filed. His expenses grow profuse, and men wonder 
from what fountain so copious a stream can flow. 

Let us stop here to survey his condition. He flour- 
ishes, is called prosperous, thinks himself safe. Is he 
safe or honest? He has stolen, and embarked the 
amount upon a sea over which wander perpetual storms, 
where wreck is the common fate, and escape the acci- 
dent ; and now all his chance for the semblance of hon- 
esty is staked upon the return of his embezzlements 
from among the sands, the rocks and currents, the winds 
and waves and darkness, of tumultuous speculation. 



46 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

At length dawns the day of discovery. His guilty 
dreams have long foretokened it. As he confronts the 
disgrace almost face to face, how changed is the hid- 
eous aspect of his deed from that fair face of promise 
with which it tempted him ! Conscience and honor 
and plain honesty, which left him when they could not 
restrain, now come back to sharpen his anguish. Over- 
awed by the prospect of open shame, of his wife's dis- 
grace and his children's beggary, he cows down, and 
slinks out of life a frantic suicide. 

Some there be, however, less supple to shame. They 
meet their fate with cool impudence, defy their em- 
ployers, brave the court, and too often with success. 
The delusion of the public mind or the confusion of 
affairs is such, that, while petty culprits are tumbled 
into prison, a cool, calculating, and immense scoundrel 
is pitied, dandled, and nursed by a sympathizing com- 
munity. In the broad road slanting to the rogue's re- 
treat are seen the officer of the bank, the agent of the 
State, the officer of the church, in indiscriminate haste, 
outrunning a lazy justice, and bearing off the gains of 
astounding frauds. Avarice and pleasure seem to have 
dissolved the conscience. It is a day of trovhle and 
of perplexity from the Lord. We tremble to think that 
our children must leave the covert of the family, and 
go out upon that dark and yesty sea, from whose wrath 
so many wrecks are cast up at our feet. Of one thing 
I am certain ; if the Church of Christ is silent to such 
deeds, and makes her altar a refuge to such dishonesty, 
the day is coming when she shall have no altar, the 
light shall go out from her candlestick, her walls shall 
be desolate, and the fox look out at her windows. 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 47 

11. Executive clemency, by its frequency, has been 
a temptation to dishonesty. Who will fear to be a 
culprit when a legal sentence is the argument of pity 
and the prelude of pardon ? What can the community 
expect but growing dishonesty, when juries connive at 
acquittals, and judges condemn only to petition a par- 
don ; when honest men and officers fly before a mob ; 
when jails are besieged and threatened, if felons are not 
relinquished ; when the Executive, consulting the spirit 
of the community, receives the demands of the mob, and 
humbly complies, throwing down the fences of the law, 
that base rioters may walk, unimpeded, to their work of 
vengeance, or unjust mercy ? A sickly sentimentality 
too often enervates the administration of justice ; and 
the pardoning power becomes the master-key to let out 
unwashed, unrepentant criminals. They have fleeced 
us, robbed us, and are ulcerous sores to the body politic ; 
yet our heart turns to water over their merited pun- 
ishment. A fine young fellow, by accident, writes 
another's name for his own ; by a mistake equally un- 
fortunate he presents it at the bank ; innocently draws 
out the large amount ; generously spends a part, and 
absent-mindedly hides the rest. Hard-hearted wretches 
there are who would punish him for this ! Young men, 
admiring the neatness of the affair, pity his misfortune, 
and curse a stupid jury that knew no better than to 
send to a penitentiary him whose skill deserved a cash- 
iership. He goes to his cell, the pity of a whole metrop- 
olis. Bulletins from Sing-Sing inform us daily what 
Edwards is doing, as if he were Napoleon at St. Helena. 
At length, pardoned, he will go forth again to a re- 
nowned liberty! 



48 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

If there be one way quicker than another, by which 
the Executive shall assist crime and our laws foster it, 
it is that course which assures every dishonest man that 
it is easy to defraud, easy to avoid arrest, easy to escape 
punishment, and easiest of all to obtain a pardon. 

12. Commercial speculations are prolific of dis- 
honesty. Speculation is the risking of capital in enter- 
prises greater than we can control, or in enterprises 
whose elements are not at all calculable. All calcula- 
tions of the future are uncertain ; but those which are 
based upon long experience approximate certainty, while 
those which are drawn by sagacity from probable events 
are notoriously unsafe. Unless, however, some venture, 
we shall forever tread an old and dull path ; therefore 
enterprise is allowed to pioneer new ways. The safe 
enterpriser explores cautiously, ventures at first a little, 
and increases the venture with the ratio of experience. 
A speculator looks out upon the new region as upon 
a far-away landscape, whose features are softened to 
beauty by distance ; upon a hope he stakes that which, 
if it wins, will make him, and if it loses, will ruin him. 
When the alternatives are victory or utter destruction, 
a battle may sometimes still be necessary. But com- 
merce has no such alternatives ; only speculation pro- 
ceeds upon them. 

If the capital is borrowed, it is as dishonest, upon 
such ventures, to risk as to lose it. Should a man bor- 
row a noble steed and ride among incitements which 
he knew would rouse up his fiery spirit to an uncon- 
trollable height, and, borne away with wild speed, be 
plunged over a precipice, his destruction might excite 
our pity, but could not alter our opinion of his dishon- 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 49 

esty. He borrowed property, and endangered it where 
he knew that it would be uncontrollable. 

If the capital be one's own, it can scarcely be risked 
and lost without the ruin of other men. No man could 
blow up his store in a compact street, and destroy only 
his own. Men of business are, like threads of a fabric, 
woven together, and subject, to a great extent, to a com- 
mon fate of prosperity or adversity. I have no right 
to cut off my hand ; I defraud myself, my family, the 
community, and God ; for all these have an interest in 
that hand. Neither has a man the right to throw away 
his property. He defrauds himself, his family, the com- 
munity in which he dwells ; for all these have an inter- 
est in that property. If waste is dishonesty, then every 
risk, in proportion as it approaches it, is dishonest. To 
venture without that foresight which experience gives 
is wrong ; and if we cannot foresee, then we must not 
venture. 

Scheming speculation demoralizes honesty and almost 
necessitates dishonesty. He who puts his own inter- 
ests to rash ventures will scarcely do better for others. 
The speculator regards the weightiest affair as only 
a splendid game. Indeed, a speculator on the ex- 
change and a gambler at his table follow one voca- 
tion, only with different instruments. One employs 
cards or dice, the other property. The one can no 
more foresee the result of his schemes than the other 
what spots will come up on his dice ; the calcula- 
tions of both are only the chances of luck. Both 
burn with unhealthy excitement ; both are avaricious 
of gains, but careless of what they win ; both depend 
more upon fortune than skill ; they have a common dis- 



50 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

taste for labor ; with each, right and wrong are only the 
accidents of a game ; neither would scruple in any hour 
to set his whole being on the edge of ruin, and, going 
over, to pull down, if possible, a hundred others. 

The wreck of such men leaves them with a drunk- 
ard's appetite and a fiend's desperation. The revulsion 
from extravagant hopes to a certainty of midnight 
darkness ; the sensations of poverty, to him who w r as 
in fancy just stepping upon a princely estate ; the 
humiliation of gleaning for cents, where he has been 
profuse of dollars ; the chagrin of seeing old competitors 
now above him, grinning down upon his poverty a 
malignant triumph ; the pity of pitiful men, and the 
neglect of such as should have been his friends, — and 
who were, while the sunshine lay upon his path, all 
these things, like so many strong winds, sweep across 
the soul so that it cannot rest in the cheerless tranquil- 
lity of honesty, but casts up mire and dirt How stately 
the balloon rises and sails over continents, as over petty 
landscapes! The slightest slit in its frail covering 
sends it tumbling down, swaying widely, whirling and 
pitching hither and thither, until it plunges into some 
dark glen, out of the path of honest men, and too shat- 
tered to tempt even a robber. So have we seen a thou- 
sand men pitched down ; so now in a thousand places 
may their wrecks be seen. But still other balloons are 
framing, and the air is full of victim- venturers. 

If our young men are introduced to life with distaste 
for safe ways because the sure profits are slow ; if the 
opinion becomes prevalent that all business is great only 
as it tends to the uncertain, the extravagant, and the 
romantic, then we may stay our hand at once, nor waste 



TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY. 51 

labor in absurd expostulations of honesty. I had as 
lief preach humanity to a battle of eagles as to urge 
honesty and integrity upon those who have determined 
to be rich, and to gain it by gambling stakes and mad- 
men's ventures. 

All the bankruptcies of commerce are harmless com- 
pared with a bankruptcy of public morals. Should the 
Atlantic Ocean break over our shores, and roll sheer 
across to the Pacific, sweeping every vestige of cultiva- 
tion and burying our wealth, it would be a mercy, com- 
pared to that ocean-deluge of dishonesty and crime 
which, sweeping over the whole land, has spared our 
wealth and taken our virtue. What are cornfields and 
vineyards, what are stores and manufactures, and what 
are gold and silver and all the precious commodities of 
the earth, among beasts ? — and what are men, bereft 
of conscience and honor, but beasts ? 

We will forget those things which are behind, and 
hope a more cheerful future. We turn to you, young 
men ! All good men, all patriots, turn to watch your 
advance upon the stage, and to implore you to be worthy 
of yourselves and of your revered ancestry. 0, ye 
favored of Heaven ! with a free land, a noble inheri- 
tance of wise laws, and a prodigality of wealth in pros- 
pect, advance to your possessions ! May you settle 
down, as did Israel of old, a people of God in a prom- 
ised and protected land, true to yourselves, true to 
your country, and true to your God ! 





LECTUEE III. 
SIX WARNINGS. 

"The generation of the upright shall be blessed, wealth 

AND RICHES SHALL BE IN HIS HOUSE." — Ps. Cxii. 2, 3. 

"He that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave 
them in the midst of his days, and at the end shall be a 
fool." — Jer. xvii. 11. 

HEN" justly obtained and rationally used, 
riches are called a gift of God, an evidence 
of his favor, and a great reward. When 
gathered unjustly and corruptly used, 
wealth is pronounced a canker, a rust, a fire, a curse. 
There is no contradiction, then, when the Bible persuades 
to industry and integrity by a promise of riches, and 
then dissuades from wealth as a terrible thing, destroy- 
ing soul and body. Blessings are vindictive to abusers, 
and kind to rightful users ; they serve us, or rule us. 
Fire warms our dwelling, or consumes it. Steam serves 
man, and also destroys him. Iron, in the plow, the 
sickle, the house, the ship, is indispensable. The dirk, 
the assassin's knife, the cruel sword, and the spear are 
iron also. 

The constitution of man and of society alike evinces 
the design of God. Both are made to be happier by 
the possession of riches ; their full development and 
perfection are dependent, to a large extent, upon wealth. 



SIX WARNINGS. 53 

Without it, there can be neither books nor implements, 
neither commerce nor arts, neither towns nor cities. It 
is a folly to denounce that, a love of which God has 
placed in man by a constitutional faculty, that with 
which he has associated high grades of happiness, that 
which has motives touching every faculty of the mind. 
Wealth is an artist, — by its patronage men are encour- 
aged to paint, to carve, to design, to build, and adorn ; 
a master-mechanic, — and inspires man to invent, to 
discover, to apply, to forge, and to fashion ; a hus- 
bandman, — and under its influence men rear the flock, 
till the earth, plant the vineyard, the field, the orchard, 
and the garden ; a manufacturer, — and teaches men 
to card, to spin, to weave, to color, and dress all useful 
fabrics ; a merchant, — and sends forth ships, and 
fills warehouses with their returning cargoes gathered 
from every zone. It is the scholar's patron ; sustains 
his leisure, rewards his labor, builds the college, and 
gathers the library. 

Is a man weak? — he can buy the strong. Is he 
ignorant ? — the learned will serve his wealth. Is he 
rude of speech ? — he may procure the advocacy of the 
eloquent. The rich cannot buy honor, but honorable 
places they can ; they cannot purchase nobility, but 
they may its titles. Money cannot buy freshness of 
heart, but it can every luxury which tempts to enjoy- 
ment. Laws are its body-guard, and no earthly power 
may safely defy it, either while running in the swift 
channels of commerce, or reposing in the reservoirs of 
ancient families. Here is a wonderful thing, that an 
inert metal, which neither thinks nor feels nor stirs, 
can set the whole world to thinking, planning, run- 



54 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ning, digging, fashioning, and drives on the sweaty 
mass with never-ending labors ! 

Avarice seeks gold, not to build or buy therewith, 
not to clothe or feed itself, not to make it an instru- 
ment of wisdom, of skill, of friendship, or religion. 
Avarice seeks it to heap it up ; to walk around the pile 
and gloat upon it ; to fondle and court, to kiss and hug 
the darling stuff to the end of life with the homage of 
idolatry. 

Pride seeks it ; for it gives power and place and 
titles, and exalts its possessor above his fellows. To be 
a thread in the fabric of life, just like any other thread, 
hoisted up and down by the treadle, played across by 
the shuttle, and woven tightly into the piece, — this 
may suit humility, but not pride. 

Vanity seeks it ; what else can give it costly cloth- 
ing and rare ornaments and stately dwellings and 
showy equipage, and attract admiring eyes to its gaudy 
colors and costly jewels ? 

Taste seeks it ; because by it may be had whatever 
is beautiful or refining or instructive. What leisure 
has poverty for study, and how can it collect books > 
manuscripts, pictures, statues, coins, or curiosities ? 

Love seeks it ; to build a home full of delights for 
father, wife, or child : and, wisest of all, 

Eeligion seeks it ; to make it the messenger and 
servant of benevolence to want, to suffering, and to 
ignorance. 

What a sight does the busy world present, as of a 
great workshop, where hope and fear, love and pride, 
and lust and pleasure and avarice, separate or in part- 
nership, drive on the universal race for wealth : delving 



SIX WARNINGS. 55 

in the mine, digging in the earth, sweltering at the forge, 
plying the shuttle, plowing the waters ; in houses, in 
shops, in stores, on the mountain-side or in the val- 
ley ; by skill, by labor, by thought, by craft, by force, 
by traffic ; — all men, in all places, by all labors, fair and 
unfair, the world around, busy, busy ; ever searching for 
wealth, that wealth may supply their pleasures. 

As every taste and inclination may receive its grati- 
fication through riches, the universal and often fierce 
pursuit of it arises, not from the single impulse of 
avarice, but from the impulse of the whole mind ; and 
on this very account its pursuits should be more exactly 
regulated. Let me set up a warning over against the 
special dangers which lie along the road to riches. 

I. I warn you against thinking that riches necessarily 
confer happiness, and poverty unhappiness. Do not 
begin life supposing that you shall be heart-rich when 
you are purse-rich. A man's happiness depends pri- 
marily upon his disposition : if that be good, riches will 
bring pleasure ; but only vexation, if that be evil. To 
lavish money upon shining trifles, to make an idol of 
one's self for fools to gaze at, to rear mansions beyond 
our wants, to garnish them for display and not for use, 
to chatter through the heartless rounds of pleasure, to 
lounge, to gape, to simper and giggle, — can wealth 
make vanity happy by such folly ? If wealth descends 
upon avarice, does it confer happiness ? It blights the 
heart, as autumnal fires ravage the prairies. The eye 
glows with greedy cunning, conscience shrivels, the light 
of love goes out, and the wretch moves amidst his coin 
no better, no happier, than a loathsome reptile in a mine 
of gold. A dreary fire of self-love burns in the bosom 



56 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

of the avaricious rich, as a hermit's flame in a ruined 
temple of the desert. The fire is kindled for no deity, 
and is odorous with no incense, but only warms the 
shivering anchorite. 

Wealth will do little for lust but to hasten its cor- 
ruption. There is no more happiness in a foul heart 
than there is health in a pestilent morass. Satisfaction 
is not made out of such stuff as fighting carousals, ob- 
scene revelry, and midnight orgies. An alligator, gor- 
ging or swollen with surfeit and basking in the sun, has 
the same happiness which riches bring to the man who 
eats to gluttony, drinks to drunkenness, and sleeps to 
stupidity. But riches indeed bless that heart whose 
almoner is benevolence. If the taste is refined, if the 
affections are pure, if conscience is honest, if charity 
listens to the needy and generosity relieves them ; if 
the public-spirited hand fosters all that embellishes 
and all that ennobles society, — then is the rich man 
happy. 

On the other hand, do not suppose that poverty is a 
waste and howling wilderness. There is a poverty of 
vice, mean, loathsome, covered with all the sores of 
depravity. There is a poverty of indolence, where vir- 
tues sleep, and passions fret and bicker. There is a 
poverty which despondency makes, — a deep dungeon, 
in which the victim wears hopeless chains. May God 
save you from that ! There is a spiteful and venomous 
poverty, in which mean and cankered hearts, repairing 
none of their own losses, spit at others' prosperity, and 
curse the rich, themselves doubly cursed by their own 
hearts. 

But there is a contented poverty, in which industry 



SIX WARNINGS. 57 

and peace rule; and a joyful hope, which looks out 
into another world where riches shall neither fly nor 
fade. This poverty may possess an independent mind, 
a heart ambitious of usefulness, a hand quick to sow the 
seed of other men's happiness, and find its own joy 
in their enjoyment. If a serene age finds you in such 
poverty, it is such a wilderness, if it be a wilderness, as 
that in which God led his chosen people, and on which 
he rained every day a heavenly manna. 

If God open to your feet the way to wealth, enter it 
cheerfully : but remember that riches will bless or curse 
you, as your own heart determines. But if, circum- 
scribed by necessity, you are still indigent, after all 
your industry, do not scorn poverty. There is often in 
the hut more dignity than in the palace ; more satisfac- 
tion in the poor man's scanty fare than in the rich 
man's satiety. 

II. Men are warned in the Bible against making 
haste TO be eich. He that hasteth to be rich hath an 
evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon 
him. This is spoken, not of the alacrity of enterprise, 
but of the precipitancy of avarice. That is an evil eye 
which leads a man into trouble by incorrect vision. 
When a man seeks to prosper by crafty tricks instead 
of careful industry ; when a man's inordinate covetous- 
ness pushes him across all lines of honesty that he may 
sooner clutch the prize; when gambling speculation 
would reap where it had not strewn ; when men gain 
riches by crimes, — there is an evil eye, which guides 
them through a specious prosperity to inevitable ruin. 
So dependent is success upon patient industry, that he 
who seeks it otherwise tempts his own ruin. A young 



58 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

lawyer, unwilling to wait for that practice which re- 
wards a good reputation, or unwilling to earn that repu- 
tation by severe application, rushes through all the dirty 
paths of chicane to a hasty prosperity ; and he rushes 
out of it by the dirtier paths of discovered villany. A 
young politician, scarcely waiting till the law allows 
his majority, sturdily legs for that popularity which he 
should have patiently earned. In the ferocious conflicts 
of political life, cunning, intrigue, falsehood, slander, 
vituperative violence, at first sustain his pretensions, 
and at last demolish them. It is thus in all the ways 
of traffic, in all the arts and trades. That prosperity 
which grows like the mushroom is as poisonous as the 
mushroom. Few men are destroyed ; but many destroy 
themselves. 

When God sends wealth to bless men he sends it 
gradually, like a gentle rain. When God sends riches 
to punish men, they come tumultuously, like a roaring 
torrent, tearing up landmarks and sweeping all before 
them in promiscuous ruin. Almost every evil which 
environs the path to wealth springs from that criminal 
haste which substitutes adroitness for industry, and trick 
for toil. 

III. Let me warn you against covetousness. Thou 
shalt not covet is the law by which God sought to bless 
a favorite people. Covetousness is greediness of money. 
The Bible meets it with significant woes* by God's 
hatred, f by solemn warnings, I by denunciations, § by 
exclusion from heaven.\\ This pecuniary gluttony comes 
upon the competitors for wealth insidiously. At first, 

* Hab. ii. 9. + Ps. x. 3. J Luke xii. 15. § 1 Cor. v. 10, 11 ; Isa. 
vii. 17. ||1 Cor. vi. 10. 



SIX WARNINGS. 59 

business is only a means of paying for our pleasures. 
Vanity soon whets the appetite for money, to sustain 
her parade and competition, to gratify her piques and 
jealousies. Pride throws in fuel for a brighter flame. 
Vindictive hatreds often augment the passion, until the 
whole soul glows as a fervid furnace, and the body is 
driven as a boat whose ponderous engine trembles with 
the utmost energy of steam. 

Covetousness is unprofitable. It defeats its own pur- 
poses. It breeds restless daring where it is dangerous 
to venture. It works the mind to fever, so that its 
judgments are not cool nor its calculations calm. 
Greed of money is like fire ; the more fuel it has, 
the hotter it burns. Everything conspires to intensify 
the heat. Loss excites by desperation, and gain by ex- 
hilaration. When there is fever in the blood, there is 
fire on the brain ; and courage turns to rashness, and 
rashness runs to ruin. 

Covetousness breeds misery. The sight of houses 
better than our own, of dress beyond our means, of jew- 
els costlier than we may wear, of stately equipage and 
rare curiosities beyond our reach, — these hatch the 
viper brood of covetous thoughts ; vexing the poor, who 
would be rich ; tormenting the rich, who would be 
richer. The covetous man pines to see pleasure ; is sad 
in the presence of cheerfulness; and the joy of the 
world is his sorrow, because all the happiness of others 
is not his. I do not wonder that God abhors * him. He 
inspects his heart, as he would a cave full of noisome 
birds or a nest of rattling reptiles, and loathes the sight 
of its crawling tenants. To the covetous man life is a 

* Ps. x. 3. 



60 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN, 

nightmare, and God lets him wrestle with it as best he 
may. Mammon might build its palace on such a heart, 
and Pleasure bring all its revelry there, and Honor all 
its garlands, — it would be like pleasures in a sepulchre 
and garlands on a tomb. 

The creed of the greedy man is brief and consistent ; 
and, unlike other creeds, is both subscribed and believed. 
The chief end of man is to glorify gold and enjoy it for- 
ever: life, is a time afforded, man to grow rich in : death, 
the winding up of speculations: heaven, a mart with 
golden streets : hell, a place where s/iiftless 7nen are pun- 
ished with everlasting poverty. 

God searched among the beasts for a fit emblem of 
contempt to describe the end of a covetous prince : He 
shall he buried with the burial of an ass, draivn and cast 
forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem* He whose heart 
is turned to greediness, who sweats through life under 
the load of labor only to heap up money, and dies with- 
out private usefulness or a record of public service, is 
no better, in God's estimation, than a pack-horse, a 
mule, an ass ; a creature for burdens, to be beaten 
and worked and killed, and dragged off by another like 
him, abandoned to the birds and forgotten. 

HE IS BURIED WITH THE BURIAL OF AN ASS ! This is 

the miser's epitaph, — and yours, young man ! if you 
earn it by covetousness ! 

IV. I warn you against selfishness. Of riches it is 
written : There is no good in them but for a man to re- 
joice and to do good in his life. If men absorb their 
property, it parches the heart so that it will not give 
forth blossoms and fruits, but only thorns and thistles. 

* Jer. xxii. 19. 



SIX WARNINGS. 61 

If men radiate and reflect upon others some rays of the 
prosperity which shines upon themselves, wealth is not 
only harmless, but full of advantage. 

The thoroughfares of wealth are crowded by a throng 
who jostle and thrust and conflict, like men in the 
tumult of a battle. The rules which crafty old men 
breathe into the ears of the young are full of selfish 
wisdom, teaching them that the chief end of man is 
to harvest, to husband, and to hoard. Their life is made 
obedient to a scale of preferences graded from a sordid 
experience, a scale which has penury for one extreme, 
and parsimony for the other ; and the virtues are ranked 
between them as they are relatively fruitful in physical 
thrift. Every crevice of the heart is calked with cos- 
tive maxims, so that no precious drop of wealth may 
leak out through inadvertent generosities. Indeed, 
generosity and all its company are thought to be little 
better than pilfering picklocks, against whose wiles the 
heart is prepared, like a coin- vault, with iron-clenched 
walls of stone and impenetrable doors. Mercy, pity, 
and sympathy are vagrant fowls ; and that they may 
not scale the fence between a man and his neigh- 
bors, their wings are clipped by the miser's master- 
maxim, Charity begins at home. It certainly stays 
there. 

The habit of regarding men as dishonest rivals dries 

up, also, the kindlier feelings. A shrewd trafficker 

must watch his fellows, be suspicious of their proffers, 

vigilant of their movements, and jealous of their 

pledges. The world's w T ay is a very crooked way, and 

a vei 7 guileful one. Its travelers creep by stealth, or 

walk craftily, or glide in concealments, or appear in spe- 
4 



62 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

cious guises. He who stands out watching among men, 
to pluck his advantage from their hands, or to lose it 
by their wiles, comes at length to regard all men as 
either enemies or instruments. Of course he thinks it- 
fair to strip an enemy, and just as fair to use an in- 
strument. Men are no more to him than bales, boxes, 
or goods, — mere matters of traffic. If he ever relaxes 
his commercial rigidity to indulge in the fictions of 
poetry, it is when, perhaps on Sundays or at a funeral, 
he talks quite prettily about friendship and generosity 
and philanthropy. The tightest ship may leak in a 
storm, and an unbartered penny may escape from this 
man when the surprise of the solicitation gives no time 
for thought. 

The heart cannot w ? holly petrify without some honest 
revulsions. Opiates are administered to it. This busi- 
ness man tells his heart that it is beset by unscrupulous 
enemies, that beneficent virtues are doors to let them 
in, that liberality is bread given to one's foes, and 
selfishness only self-defense. At the same time he 
enriches the future with generous promises. While he 
is getting rich he cannot afford to be liberal ; but when 
once he is rich, ah ! how liberal he means to be ! — as 
though habits could be unbuckled like a girdle, and 
were not rather steel bands riveted, defying the edge 
of any man's resolution, and clasping the heart with 
invincible servitude ! 

Thorough selfishness destroys or paralyzes enjoyment. 
A heart made selfish by the contest for wealth is like a 
citadel stormed in war. The banner of victory waves 
over dilapidated walls, desolate chambers, and magazines 
riddled with artillery. Men, covered with sweat and 



SIX WARNINGS. 63 

begrimed with toil, expect to find joy in a heart reduced 
by selfishness to a smouldering heap of ruins. 

I warn every aspirant for wealth against the infernal 
canker of selfishness. It will eat out of the heart with 
the fire of hell, or bake it harder than a stone. The 
heart of avaricious old age stands like a bare rock in 
a bleak wilderness, and there is no rod of authority, nor 
incantation of pleasure, which can draw from it one 
crystal drop to quench the raging thirst for satisfaction. 
But listen not to my words alone ; hear the solemn voice 
of God, pronouncing doom upon the selfish : Your riches 
are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your 
gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall 
be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it 
were fire* 

V. I warn you against seeking wealth by covert 
dishonesty. The everlasting plea of petty fraud or 
open dishonesty is its necessity or profitableness. 

It is neither necessary nor profitable. The hope is a 
deception and the excuse a lie. The severity of com- 
petition affords no reason for dishonesty in word or deed. 
Competition is fair, but not all methods of competition. 
A mechanic may compete with a mechanic by rising 
earlier, by greater industry, by greater skill, more punc- 
tuality, greater thoroughness, by employing better ma- 
terials, by a more scrupulous fidelity to promises, and 
by facility in accommodation. A merchant may study 
to excel competitors by a better selection of goods, by 
more obliging manners, by more rigid honesty, by a 
better knowledge of the market, by better taste in the 
arrangement of his goods. Industry, honesty, kind- 

* James v. 2, 3. 



64 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ness, taste, genius, and skill are the only materials of 
all rightful competition. 

But whenever you have exerted all your knowledge, 
all your skill, all your industry, with long-continued 
patience and without success, then it is clear, not that 
you may proceed to employ trick and cunning, but that 
you must stop. God has put before you a bound which 
no man may overleap. There may be the appearance of 
gain on the knavish side of the wall of honor. Traps 
are always baited with food sweet to the taste of the 
intended victim ; and Satan is too crafty a trapper not 
to scatter the pitfall of dishonesty with some shining 
particles of gold. 

But what if fraud were necessary to permanent suc- 
cess, will you take success upon such terms ? I per- 
ceive, too often, that young men regard the argument 
as ended when they prove to themselves that they can- 
not be rich without guile. Very well; then be poor. 
But if you prefer money to honor, you may well swear 
fidelity to the villain's law ! If it is not base and de- 
testable to gain by equivocation, neither is it by lying ; 
and if not by lying, neither is it by stealing ; and if not 
by stealing, neither by robbery nor murder. Will you 
tolerate the loss of honor and honesty for the sake of 
profit ? For exactly this Judas betrayed Christ, and 
Arnold his country. Because it is the only way to gain 
some pleasure, may a wife yield her honor, a poli- 
tician sell himself, a statesman barter his counsel, 
a judge take bribes, a juryman forswear himself, or 
a witness commit perjury ? Then virtues are market- 
able commodities, and may be hung up, like meat in 
the shambles, or sold at auction to the highest bidder. 



SIX WARNINGS. 65 

Who can afford a victory gained by a defeat of his 
virtue ? What prosperity can compensate the plunder- 
ing of a man's heart ? A good name is rather to be 
chosen than great riches : sooner or later every man will 
find it so. 

With what dismay would Esau have sorrowed for a 
lost birthright, had he lost also the pitiful mess of pot- 
tage for which he sold it ? With what double despair 
would Judas have clutched at death, if he had not ob- 
tained even the thirty pieces of silver which were to 
pay his infamy ? And with what utter confusion will 
all dishonest men, who were learning of the Devil to 
defraud other men, find, at length, that he was giving 
his most finished lesson of deception, — by cheating 
them, and making poverty and disgrace the only fruit 
of the lies and frauds which were framed for profit ! 
Getting treasure by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to 
and fro of them that seek death. 

Men have only looked upon the beginning of a career 
when they pronounce upon the profitableness of dis- 
honesty. Many a ship goes gayly out of harbor which 
never returns again. That only is a good voyage which 
brings home the richly freighted ship. God explicitly 
declares that an inevitable curse of dishonesty shall fall 
upon the criminal himself, or upon his children : He 
that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, 
he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. His 
children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the 
gate. Neither is there any to deliver them : the robber 
swalloiveth up their substamce. 

Iniquities, whose end is dark as midnight, are per- 
mitted to open bright as the morning ; the most poi- 



66 LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

sonous bud unfolds with brilliant colors. So the 
threshold of perdition is burnished till it glows like the 
gate of paradise. TJiere is a way which seemeth right 
unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. 
This is dishonesty described to the life. At first you 
look down upon a smooth and verdant path covered 
with flowers, perfumed with odors, and overhung with 
fruits and grateful shade. Its long perspective is illu- 
sive ; for it ends quickly in a precipice, over which you 
pitch into irretrievable ruin. 

For the sources of this inevitable disaster we need 
look no further than, the effect of dishonesty upon a 
man's own mind. The difference between cunning and 
wisdom is the difference between acting by the certain 
and immutable laws of nature and acting by the shifts 
of temporary expedients. An honest man puts his 
prosperity upon the broad current of those laws which 
govern the world. A crafty man means to pry between 
them, to steer across them, to take advantage of them. 
An honest man steers by God's chart ; and a dishonest 
man by his own. Which is the most liable to perplex- 
ities and fatal mistakes of judgment ? Wisdom steadily 
ripens to the end ; cunning is worm-bitten, and soon 
drops from the tree. 

I could repeat the names of many men (every village 
has such, and they swarm in cities) who are skillful, in- 
defatigable, but audaciously dishonest ; and for a time 
they seemed going straight forward to the realm of 
wealth. I never knew a single one to avoid ultimate 
ruin. Men who act under dishonest passions are like 
men riding fierce horses. It is not always with the 
rider when or where he shall stop. If for his sake the 



SIX WAKNINGS. 67 

steed dashes wildly on while the road is smooth, so, 
turning suddenly into a rough and dangerous way, the 
rider must go madly forward for the steed's sake, — now 
chafed, his mettle up, his eye afire, and beast and bur- 
den like a bolt speeding through the air, until some 
bound or sudden fall tumble both to the ground, a 
crushed and mangled mass. 

A man pursuing plain ends by honest means may be 
troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; perplexed, but 
not in despair ; persecuted, hut not forsaken ; cast down, 
hut not destroyed. But those that pursue their advan- 
tage by a round of dishonesties, vjhenfear cometh as a 
desolation, and destruction as a whirlwind, when distress 
and anguish come upon them, .... shall eat of the 
fruit of their own way, and he filled ivith their own de- 
vices ; for the turning away of the simple shall slay them, 
and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 

VI. The Bible overflows with warnings to those who 
gain wealth by violent extortion or by any flagrant 
villany. Some men stealthily slip from under them the 
possessions of the poor. Some beguile the simple and 
heedless of their patrimony. Some tyrannize over 
ignorance, and extort from it its fair domains. Some 
steal away the senses and intoxicate the mind, the 
more readily and largely to cheat ; some set their traps 
in all the dark places of men's adversity, and prowl for 
wrecks all along the shores on which men's fortunes go 
to pieces. Men will take advantage of extreme misery 
to wring it with more griping tortures, and compel it to 
the extremest sacrifices ; and stop only when no more 
can be borne by the sufferer, or nothing more extracted 
by the usurer. The earth is as full of avaricious mon- 



68 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

sters as the tropical forests are of beasts of prey. But 
amid all the lions and tigers and hyenas is seen the 
stately bulk of three huge Behemoths. 

The first Behemoth is that incarnate fiend who navi- 
gates the ocean to traffic in human misery and freight 
with the groans and tears of agony. Distant shores are 
sought with cords and manacles, villages surprised 
with torch and sword, and the loathsome ship swal- 
lows what the sword and the fire have spared. By 
night and day the voyage speeds, and the storm spares 
wretches more relentless than itself. The wind wafts 
and the sun lights the path for a ship whose log is writ- 
ten in blood. Hideous profits, dripping red, even at this 
hour, lure these infernal miscreants to their remorseless 
errands. The thirst of gold inspires such courage, skill, 
and cunning vigilance, that the thunders of four allied 
navies cannot sink the infamous fleet. 

What wonder ? Just such a Behemoth of rapacity 
stalks among us, and fattens on the blood of our sons. 
Men there are, who, without a pang or gleam of remorse, 
will coolly wait for character to rot, and health to sink, 
and means to melt, that they may suck up the last drop 
of the victim's blood. Our streets are full of reeling 
wretches whose bodies and manhood and souls have 
been crushed and put to the press, that monsters might 
wring out of them a wine for their infernal thirst. The 
agony of midnight massacre, the frenzy of the ship's 
dungeon, the living death of the middle passage, the 
wails of separation, and the dismal torpor of hopeless 
servitude, — are these found only in the piracy of the 
slave-trade ? They all are among us ! worse assassina- 
tions ! worse dragging to a prison-ship ! worse groans 



SIX WARNINGS. 69 

ringing from the fetid hold ! worse separations of fami- 
lies ! worse bondage of intemperate men, enslaved by 
that most inexorable of all taskmasters, sensual habit ! 
The third Behemoth is seen lurking among the In- 
dian savages, and bringing the arts of learning and the 
skill of civilization to aid in plundering the debauched 
barbarian. The cunning, murdering, scalping Indian 
is no match for the Christian white man. Compared 
with the midnight knavery of men reared in schools, 
rocked by religion, tempered and taught by the humane 
institutions of liberty and civilization, all the craft of 
the savage is twilight. Vast estates have been accumu- 
lated without having an honest farthing in them. Our 
Penitentiaries might be sent to school to the Treaty- 
grounds and Council-grounds. Smugglers and swindlers 
might humble themselves in the presence of Indian 
traders. All the crimes against property known to our 
laws flourish with unnatural vigor, and some unknown 
to civilized villany. To swindle ignorance, to overreach 
simplicity, to lie without scruple to any extent, from 
mere implication down to perjury ; to tempt the savages 
to rob each other, and to receive their plunder ; to sell 
goods at incredible prices to the sober Indian, then to 
intoxicate him, and steal them all back by a sham bar- 
gain, to be sold again and stolen again; to employ 
falsehood, lust, threats, whiskey, and even the knife and 
the pistol ; in short, to consume the Indian's substance 
by every vice and crime possible to an unprincipled 
heart inflamed with an insatiable rapacity, unwatched 
by justice, and unrestrained by law, — this it is to be 
an Indian trader. I would rather inherit the bowels 
of Vesuvius, or make my bed in Etna, than own those 



70 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

estates which have been scalped off from human beings 
as the hunter strips a beaver of its fur. Of all these, 
of ALL who gain possessions by extortion and robbery, 
never let yourself be envious ! / was envious at the 
foolish, ivhen I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Their 
eyes stand out with fatness : tliey ho.ve more than heart 
coidd wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly con- 
cerning oppression. They have set their mouth against 
the heaven, and their tongue walketh through the earth. 
When I sought to know this, it was too painfvl for me, 
until I went into the sanctuary. Surely thou didst set 
them in slippery places ! thou castedst them down into de- 
struction as in a moment ! They are utterly consumed, 
with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh, so, Lord, 
when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image ! 

I would not bear their heart who have so made 
money, were the world a solid globe of gold, and mine. 
I would not stand for them in the judgment, were every 
star of heaven a realm of riches, and mine. I would 
not walk with them the burning marl of hell, to bear 
their torment, and utter their groans, for the throne of 
God itself. 

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. 
Eiches got by deceit cheat no man so much as the 
getter. Eiches bought with guile God will pay for 
with vengeance. Eiches got by fraud are dug out of 
one's own heart, and destroy the mine. Unjust riches 
curse the owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting. 
They curse his children in their father's memory, in 
their own wasteful habits, in drawing around them all 
bad men to be their companions. 

While I do not discourage your search for wealth, I 



SIX WARNINGS. 71 

warn you that it is not a cruise upon level seas and un- 
der bland skies. You advance where ten thousand are 
broken in pieces before they reach the mart ; where 
those who reach it are worn out, by their labors, past 
enjoying their riches. You seek a land pleasant to the 
sight, but dangerous to the feet ; a land of fragrant 
winds, which lull to security ; of golden fruits which are 
poisonous ; of glorious hues, which dazzle and mislead. 

You may be rich and be pure ; but it will cost you a 
struggle. You may be rich and go to heaven ; but ten, 
doubtless, will sink beneath their riches, where one 
breaks through them to heaven. If you have entered 
this shining way, begin to look for snares and traps. 
Go not careless of your danger, and provoking it. See, 
on every side of you, how many there are who seal 
God's word with their blood : — 

Tlwy that ivill be rich fall into temptation and a snare, 
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which droion 
men in destruction and perdition. For the LOVE of 
money is the root of all evil, which, while some have cov- 
eted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced 
themselves through with many sorrows. 






LECTUEE IV. 

PORTRAIT GALLERY. 

"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." — 
Proverbs i. 10. 

I E who is allured to embrace evil under some 
engaging form of beauty or seductive ap- 
pearance of good is enticed. A man is 
tempted to what he knows to be sinful ; he 
is -enticed where the evil appears to be innocent. The 
enticer wins his way by bewildering the moral sense, 
setting false lights ahead of the imagination, painting 
disease with the hues of health, making impurity to 
glow like innocency, strewing the broad road with flow- 
ers, lulling its travelers with soothing music, hiding all 
its chasms, covering its pitfalls, and closing its long 
perspective with the mimic glow of paradise. 

The young are seldom tempted to outright wicked- 
ness ; evil comes to them as an enticement. The honest 
generosity and fresh heart of youth would revolt from 
open meanness and undisguised vice. The Adversary 
conforms his wiles to their nature. He tempts them 
to the basest deeds by beginning with innocent ones, 
gliding to more exceptionable, and, finally, to positively 
wicked ones. All our warnings, then, must be against 
the vernal beauty of vice. Its autumn and winter none 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 73 

wish. It is my purpose to describe the enticement of 
particular men upon the young. 

Every youth knows that there are dangerous men 
abroad who would injure him by lying, by slander, by 
overreaching and plundering him. From such they 
have little to fear, because they are upon their guard. 
Few imagine that they have anything to dread from 
those who have no designs against them ; yet such is 
the instinct of imitation, so insensibly does the example 
of men steal upon us and warp our conduct to their 
likeness, that the young often receive a deadly injury 
from men with whom they never spoke. As all bodies 
in nature give out or receive caloric until there is an 
equilibrium of temperature, so there is a radiation of 
character upon character. Our thoughts, our tastes, our 
emotions, our partialities, our prejudices, and, finally, our 
conduct and habits, are insensibly changed by the silent 
influence of men who never once directly tempted us, 
or even knew the effect which they produced. I shall 
draw for your inspection some of those dangerous men, 
whose open or silent enticement has availed against 
thousands, and will be exerted upon thousands more. 

I. The Wit. It is sometimes said by phlegmatic 
theologians that Christ never laughed, but often wept. 
I shall not quarrel with the assumption. I only say 
that men have within them a faculty of mirthfulness 
which God created. I suppose it was meant for use. 
Those who do not feel the impulsion of this faculty are 
not the ones to sit in judgment upon those who do. It 
would be very absurd for an owl in an ivy-bush to read 
lectures on optics to an eagle ; or for a mole to counsel 
a lynx on the sin of sharp-sightedness. He is divinely 



74 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

favored who may trace a silver vein in all the affairs of 
life, see sparkles of light in the gloomiest scenes, and 
absolute radiance in those which are bright. There are 
in the clouds ten thousand inimitable forms and hues to 
be found nowhere else ; there are in plants and trees 
beautiful shapes and endless varieties of color; there 
are in flowers minute pencilings of exquisite shade ; in 
fruits a delicate bloom, — like a veil, making the face 
of beauty more beautiful ; sporting among the trees and 
upon the flowers are tiny insects, gems which glow 
like living diamonds. Ten thousand eyes stare full 
upon these things and see nothing ; and yet thus the 
Divine Artist has finished his matchless work. Thus, 
too, upon all the labors of life, the events of each hour, 
the course of good or evil ; upon each action, or word, 
or attitude; upon all the endless changes transpiring 
among myriad men, there is a delicate grace, or bloom, 
or sparkle, or radiance, which catches the eye of wit, 
and delights it with appearances which are to the 
weightier matters of life what odor, colors, and sym- 
metry are to the marketable and commercial properties 
of matter. 

A mind imbued with this feeling is full of dancing 
motes, such as we see moving in sunbeams when they 
pour through some shutter into a dark room ; and when 
the sights and conceptions of wit are uttered in words, 
they diffuse upon others that pleasure whose brightness 
shines upon its own cheerful imagination. 

It is not strange that the wit is a universal favorite. 
All companies rejoice in his presence, watch for his 
words, repeat his language. He moves like a comet 
whose incomings and outgoings are uncontrollable. He 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 75 

astonishes the regular stars with the eccentricity of his 
orbit, and flirts his long tail athwart the heaven without 
the slightest misgivings that it will be troublesome, and 
coquets the very sun with audacious familiarity. When 
wit is unperverted, it lightens labor, makes the very face 
of care to shine, diffuses cheerfulness among men, mul- 
tiplies the sources of harmless enjoyment, gilds the dark 
things of life, and heightens the lustre of the brightest 
If perverted, wit becomes an instrument of malevolence, 
it gives a deceitful coloring to vice, it reflects a sem- 
blance of truth upon error, and distorts the features of 
real truth by false lights. 

The wit is liable to indolence, by relying upon his 
genius ; to vanity, by the praise which is offered 
as incense; to malignant sarcasm to avenge his af- 
fronts; to dissipation, from the habit of exhilaration, 
and from the company which court him. The mere 
wit is only a human bauble. He is to life what bells 
are to horses, — not expected to draw the load, but only 
to jingle while the horses draw. 

The young often repine at their own native dullness ; 
and since God did not choose to endow them with this 
shining quality, they will make it for themselves. 
Forthwith they are smitten with the itch of imitation. 
Their ears purvey to their mouth the borrowed jest, 
their eyes note the wit's fashion ; and the awkward 
youth clumsily apes, in a side circle, the wit's deft and 
graceful gesture, the smooth smile, the roguish twinkle, 
the sly look, much as Caliban would itnitate Ariel. 
Every community is supplied with self-made wits. 
One retails other men's sharp witticisms as a Jew puts 
off threadbare garments. Another roars over his own 



76 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

brutal quotations of Scripture. Another invents a wit- 
ticism by a logical deduction of circumstances, and sniffs 
and giggles over the result as complacently as if other 
men laughed too. Others lie in wait around your con- 
versation to trip up some word or strike a light out of 
some sentence. Others fish in dictionaries for pitiful 
puns. And all fulfil the prediction of Isaiah, Ye shall 
conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble. 

It becomes a mania. Each school has its allusions, 
each circle has its apish motion, each companionhood its 
park of wit-artillery ; and we find street- wit, shop- wit, 
auction-wit, school-wit, fool's-wit, whiskey-wit, stable- 
wit, and almost every kind of wit but mother-wit, — 
puns, quibbles, catches, would-be-jests, threadbare stories, 
and gewgaw tinsel, — everything but the real diamond, 
which sparkles simply because God made it so that it 
could not help sparkling. Eeal, native mirthfulness is 
like a pleasant rill which quietly wells up in some ver- 
dant nook, and steals out from among reeds and willows 
noiselessly, and is seen far down the meadow, as much 
by the fruitfulness of its edges in flowers as by its own 
glimmering light. 

Let every one beware of the insensible effect of witty 
men upon him ; they gild lies, so that base coin may 
pass for true; that which is grossly wrong wit may 
make fascinating ; when no argument could persuade 
you, the coruscations of wit may dazzle and blind you ; 
when duty presses you, the threatenings of this human 
lightning may make you afraid to do right. Eemember 
that the very best office of wit is only to lighten the 
serious labors of life ; that it is only a torch, by which 
men may cheer the gloom of a dark way. When it sets 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 77 

up to be your counsellor or your guide, it is the fool's 
fire, flitting irregularly, and leading you into the quag or 
morass. The great dramatist represents a witty sprite 
to have put an ass's head upon a man's shoulders ; be- 
ware that you do not let this mischievous sprite put an 
ape's head upon yours. 

If God has not given you this quicksilver, no art can 
make it ; nor need you regret it. The stone, the wood, 
and the iron are a thousand times more valuable to 
society than pearls and diamonds and rare gems ; and 
sterling sense and industry and integrity are better a 
thousand times, in the hard work of living, than the 
brilliance of WIT. 

II. There is a character which I shall describe as the 
Humorist. I do not employ the term to designate one 
who indulges in that pleasantest of all wit, latent wit ; 
but to describe a creature who conceals a coarse animal- 
ism under a brilliant, jovial exterior. The dangerous 
humorist is of a plump condition, evincing the excel- 
lent digestion of a good eater, and answering very well 
to the Psalmist's description : His eyes stand out with 
fatness ; he is not in trouble as other men are ; he has 
more than heart could wish, and his tongue walketh 
through the earth. Whatever is pleasant in ease, what- 
ever is indulgent in morals, whatever is solacing in 
luxury, — the jovial few, the convivial many, the glass, 
the cards, the revel, and midnight uproar, — these are 
his delights. His manners are easy and agreeable ; his 
face redolent of fun and good-nature ; his whole air that 
of a man fond of the utmost possible bodily refresh- 
ment. Withal, he is sufficiently circumspect and secre- 
tive of his course to maintain a place in genteel society ; 



78 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

for that is a luxury. He is not a glutton, but a choice 
eater. He is not a gross drinker, only a gentlemanly 
consumer of every curious compound of liquor. He 
has traveled ; he can tell you which, in every city, is 
the best bar, the best restaurateur, the best stable. He 
knows every theater, each actor ; particularly is he 
versed in the select morsels of the scandalous indul- 
gence peculiar to each. He knows every race-course, 
every nag, the history of all the famous matches, and 
the pedigree of every distinguished horse. The whole 
vocabulary of pleasure is vernacular, — its wit, its slang, 
its watchwords, and black-letter literature. He is a pro- 
found annalist of scandal ; every stream of news, clear 
or muddy, disembogues into the gulf of his prodigious 
memory. He can tell you, after living but a week in a 
city, who gambles, when, for what sums, and with what 
fate ; who is impure ; who was, who is suspected ; who 
is not suspected, but ought to be. He is a morbid 
anatomist of morals ; a brilliant flesh-fly, unerring to 
detect taint. 

Like other men, he loves admiration, and desires to 
extend his influence. All these manifold accomplish- 
ments are exhibited before the callow young. That he 
may secure a train of useful followers, he is profuse of 
money ; and moves among them with an easy, insinu- 
ating frankness, a never-ceasing gayety, so spicy with 
fun, so diverting with stories, so full of little hits, sly in- 
nuendoes, or solemn wit, with now and then a rare touch 
of dexterous mimicry, and the whole so pervaded by 
the indescribable flavor, the changing hues of humor, — 
that the young are bewildered with idolatrous admira- 
tion. What gay young man, who is old enough to ad- 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 79 

mire himself and be ashamed of his parents, can resist 
a man so bedewed with humor, narrating exquisite 
stories with such mock gravity, with such slyness of 
mouth and twinkling of the eye, with such grotesque 
attitudes and significant gestures ? He is declared to 
be the most remarkable man in the world. Now take 
off this man's dress, put out the one faculty of mirth- 
fulness, and he will stand disclosed without a single 
positive virtue. With strong appetites deeply indulged, 
hovering perpetually upon the twilight edge of every 
vice, and whose wickedness is only not apparent be- 
cause it is garnished w r ith flowers and garlands ; who is 
not despised, only because his various news, artfully 
told, keeps us in good-humor with ourselves. At one 
period of youthful life, this creature's influence sup- 
plants that of every other man. There is an absolute 
fascination in him which awakens a craving in the mind 
to be of his circle ; plain duties become drudgery, home 
has no light ; life at its ordinary key is monotonous, 
and must be screwed up to the concert, pitch of this 
wonderful genius ! As he tells his stories, so, with a 
wretched grimace of imitation, apprentices will try to 
tell them ; as he gracefully swings through the street, 
they will roll ; they will leer because he stares gen- 
teelly ; he sips, they guzzle, — and talk impudently, 
because he talks with easy confidence. He walks erect, 
they strut ; he lounges, they loll ; he is less than a man, 
and they become even less than he. Copper rings, 
huge blotches of breastpins, wild streaming handker- 
chiefs, jaunty hats, odd clothes, superfluous walking- 
sticks, ill-uttered oaths, stupid jokes, and blundering 
pleasantries, — these are the first-fruits of imitation ! 



80 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

There are various grades of it, from the office, store, 
shop, street, clear down to the hostlery and stable. 
Our cities are filled with these juvenile nondescript 
monsters, these compounds of vice, low wit, and vul- 
garity. The original is morally detestable, and the 
counterfeit is a very base imitation of a very base 
thing, the dark shadow of a very ugly substance. 

III. The Cynic. The cynic is one who never sees 
a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad 
one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and 
blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing 
noble game. The cynic puts all human actions into 
only two classes, — openly bad, and secretly bad. All 
virtue and generosity and disinterestedness are merely 
the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He 
holds that no man does a good thing except for profit. 
The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to 
chill and sear them, to send you away sore and morose. 
His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscriminately upon 
every lovely thing, like frost upon flowers. If a man is 
said to be pure and chaste, he will answer, Yes, in the 
daytime. If a woman is pronounced virtuous, he will 
reply, Yes, as yet Mr. A is a religious man : Yes, on 
Sundays. Mr. B has just joined the church : Certainly ; 
the elections are coming on. The minister of the gospel 
is called an example of diligence : It is his trade. Such 
a man is generous : Of other men's money. This man is 
obliging : To lull suspicion and cheat you. That man is 
upright : Because he is green. Thus his eye strains out 
every good quality and takes in only the bad. To him 
religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for fraud, 
virtue only want of opportunity, and undeniable purity, 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 81 

asceticism. The livelong day he will coolly sit with 
sneering lip, uttering sharp speeches in the quietest 
manner and in polished phrase, transfixing every char- 
acter which is presented : His vjotcIs are softer than oil, 
yet are they drawn swords. 

All this, to the young, seems a wonderful knowledge 
of human nature ; they honor a man who appears to 
have found out mankind. They begin to indulge them- 
selves in flippant sneers ; and with supercilious brow, 
and impudent tongue wagging to an empty brain, call 
to naught the wise, the long tried, and the venerable. 

I do believe that man is corrupt enough ; but some- 
thing of good has survived his wreck, something of 
evil religion has restrained, and something partially 
restored ; yet I look upon the human heart as a moun- 
tain of fire. I dread its crater. I tremble when I 
see its lava roll the fiery stream. Therefore I am the 
more glad, if upon the old crust of past eruptions I 
can find a single flower springing up. So far from 
rejecting appearances of virtue in the corrupt heart of 
a depraved race, I am eager to see their light as ever 
mariner was to see a star in a stormy night. 

Moss will grow upon gravestones ; the ivy will cling 
to the mouldering pile ; the mistletoe springs from the 
dying branch ; and, God be praised, something green, 
something fair to the sight and grateful to the heart, 
will yet twine around and grow out of the seams and 
cracks of the desolate temple of the human heart ! 

Who could walk through Thebes, Palmyra, or Petrsea, 
and survey the wide waste of broken arches, crumbled 
altars, fallen pillars, effaced cornices, toppling walls, and 
crushed statues, with no feelings but those of contempt ? 



82 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Who, unsorrowing, could see the stork's nest upon the 
carved pillar, satyrs dancing on marble pavements, and 
scorpions nestling where beauty once dwelt, and dragons 
the sole tenants of royal palaces ? Amid such melan- 
choly magnificence, even the misanthrope might weep ! 
If here and there an altar stood unbruised, or a graven 
column unblemished, or a statue nearly perfect, he might 
well feel love for a man-wrought stone, so beautiful, 
when all else is so dreary and desolate. Thus, though 
man is as a desolate city, and his passions are as the 
wild beasts of the wilderness howling in kings' palaces, 
yet he is God's workmanship, and a thousand touches 
of exquisite beauty remain. Since Christ hath put his 
sovereign hand to restore man's ruin, many points are 
remoulded, and the fair form of a new fabric already 
appears growing from the ruins, and the first faint flame 
is glimmering upon the restored altar. 

It is impossible to indulge in such habitual severity 
of opinion upon our fellow-men without injuring the 
tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings. A man 
will he what his most cherished feelings are. If he en- 
courage a noble generosity, every feeling will be enriched 
by it ; if he nurse bitter and envenomed thoughts, his 
own spirit will absorb the poison ; and he will crawl 
among men as a burnished adder, whose life is mischief 
and whose errand is death. 

Although experience should correct the indiscriminate 
confidence of the young, no experience should render 
them callous to goodness, wherever seen. He who hunts 
for flowers will find flowers ; and he who loves weeds 
may find weeds. Let it be remembered that no man, 
who is not himself mortally diseased, will have a relish 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 83 

for disease in others. A swollen wretch, blotched all over 
with leprosy, may grin hideously at every wart or excres- 
cence upon beauty. A wholesome man will be pained 
at it, and seek not to notice it. Eeject, then, the morbid 
ambition of the cynic, or cease to call yourself a man ! 

IV. I fear that few villages exist without a specimen 
of the Libertine. 

His errand into this world is to explore every depth 
of sensuality, and collect upon himself the foulness of 
every one. He is proud to be vile ; his ambition is to 
be viler than other men. Were we not confronted almost 
daily by such wretches, it would be hard to believe that 
any could exist to whom purity and decency were a bur- 
den, and only corruption a delight. This creature has 
changed his nature, until only that which disgusts a 
pure mind pleases his. He is lured by the scent of 
carrion. His coarse feelings, stimulated by gross excit- 
ants, are insensible to delicacy. The exquisite bloom, 
the dew and freshness of the flowers of the heart which 
delight both good men and God himself, he gazes upon 
as a Behemoth would gaze enraptured upon a prairie of 
flowers. It is so much pasture. The forms, the odors, 
the hues, are only a mouthful for his terrible appetite. 
Therefore his breath blights every innocent thing. He 
sneers at the mention of purity, and leers in the very 
face of Virtue, as though she were herself corrupt, if 
the truth were known. He assures the credulous dis- 
ciple that there is no purity ; that its appearances are 
only the veils which cover indulgence. Nay, he solicits 
praise for the very openness of his evil ; and tells the 
listener that all act as he acts, but only few are cour- 
ageous enough to own it. But the uttermost parts of 



84 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

depravity are laid open only when several such monsters 
meet together, and vie with each other, as we might 
suppose shapeless mud-monsters disport in the slimiest 
ooze of the ocean. They dive in fierce rivalry which shall 
reach the most infernal depth and bring up the blackest 
sediment. It makes the blood of an honest man run 
cold, to hear but the echo of the shameless rehearsals 
of their salacious enterprises. Each strives to tell a 
blacker tale than the other. When the abomination of 
their actual life is not damnable enough to satisfy the 
ambition of their unutterable corruption, they devise, in 
their imagination, scenes yet more flagrant ; swear that 
they have performed them, and, when they separate, 
each strives to make his lying boastings true. It would 
seem as if miscreants so loathsome would have no power 
of temptation upon the young. Experience shows that 
the worst men are, often, the most skillful in touching 
the springs of human action. A young man knows 
little of life, less of himself. He feels in his bosom 
the various impulses, wild desires, restless cravings he 
can hardly tell for what, a sombre melancholy when all 
is gay, a violent exhilaration when others are sober. 
These wild gushes of feeling, peculiar to youth, the 
sagacious tempter has felt, has studied, has practised 
upon, until he can sit before that most capacious organ, 
the human mind, knowing every stop, and all the com- 
binations, and competent to touch any note through the 
diapason. As a serpent deceived the purest of mortals, 
so now a beast may mislead their posterity. He begins 
afar off. He decries the virtue of all men ; studies to 
produce a doubt that any are under self-restraint. He 
unpacks his filthy stories, plays off the fireworks of his 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 85 

corrupt imagination, — its blue-lights, its red-lights, and 
green-lights, and sparkle-spitting lights, — and edging in 
upon the yielding youth, who begins to wonder at his 
experience, he boasts his first exploits, he hisses at the 
purity of women; he grows yet bolder, tells more 
wicked deeds, and invents worse even than he ever per- 
formed, though he has performed worse than good men 
ever thought of. All thoughts, all feelings, all ambition, 
are merged in one, and that the lowest, vilest, most de- 
testable ambition. 

Had I a son of years, I could, with thanksgiving, see 
him go down to the grave, rather than fall into the maw 
of this most besotted devil. The plague is mercy, the 
cholera is love, the deadliest fever is refreshment to 
man's body, in comparison with this epitome and essence 
of moral disease. He lives among men, hell's ambas- 
sador with full credentials ; nor can we conceive that 
there should be need of any other fiend to perfect the 
works of darkness, while he carries his body among us, 
stuffed with every pestilent drug of corruption. The 
heart of every virtuous young man should loathe him ; 
if he speaks, you should as soon hear a wolf bark. 
Gather around you the venomous snake, the poisonous 
toad, the fetid vulture, the prowling hyena, and their 
company would be an honor to you above his ; for they 
at least remain within their own nature ; but he goes 
out of his nature that he may become more vile than 
it is possible for a mere animal to be. 

He is hateful to religion, hateful to virtue, hateful to 
decency, hateful to the coldest morality. The stenchful 
ichor of his dissolved heart has flowed over every feel- 
ing of his nature, and left them as the burning lava 



86 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

leaves the garden, the orchard, and the vineyard. And 
it is a wonder that the bolt of God which crushed Sodom 
does not slay him. It is a wonder that the earth does 
not refuse the burden, and open and swallow him up. 
I do not fear that the young will be undermined by 
his direct assaults. But some will imitate, and their 
example will be again freely imitated, and, finally, a 
remote circle of disciples will spread the diluted con- 
tagion among the virtuous. This man will be the foun- 
tain-head, and though none will come to drink at a hot 
spring, yet farther down along the stream it sends out 
will be found many scooping from its waters. 

V. I have described the Devil in his native form, but 
he sometimes appears as an angel of light. There is a 
polished libertine, in manners studiously refined, in taste 
faultless ; his face is mild and engaging ; his words drop 
as pure as newly made honey. In general society he 
would rather attract regard as a model of purity, and 
Suspicion herself could hardly look askance upon him. 
Under this brilliant exterior, his heart is like a sepul- 
cher, full of all uncleanness. Contrasted with the gross 
libertine, it would not be supposed that he had a thought 
in common with him. If his heart could be opened to 
our eyes, as it is to God's, we should perceive scarcely 
dissimilar feeling in respect to appetite. Professing 
unbounded admiration of virtue in general, he leaves 
not in private a point untransgressed. His reading has 
culled every glowing picture of amorous poets, every 
tempting scene of loose dramatists and looser novelists. 
Enriched by these, his imagination, like a rank soil, is 
overgrown with a prodigal luxuriance of poison herbs 
and deadly flowers. Men such as this man is frequently 



PORTRAIT GALLERY, 87 

aspire to be the censors of morality. They are hurt at 
the injudicious reprehensions of vice from the pulpit. 
They make great outcry when plain words are employed 
to denounce base things. They are astonishingly sensi- 
tive and fearful lest good men should soil their hands 
with too much meddling with evil. Their cries are not 
the evidence of sensibility to virtue, but of too lively a 
sensibility to vice. Sensibility is, often, only the flut- 
tering of an impure heart. 

At the very time that their voice is ringing an alarm 
against immoral reformations, they are secretly skeptical 
of every tenet of virtue, and practically unfaithful to 
every one. Of these two libertines, the most refined is 
the more dangerous. The one is a rattlesnake which 
carries its warning with it ; the other, hiding his bur- 
nished scales in the grass, skulks to perform unsuspected 
deeds in darkness. The one is the visible fog and miasm 
of the morass ; the other is the serene air of a tropical 
city, which, though brilliant, is loaded with invisible 
pestilence. 

The Politician. If there be a man on earth whose 
character should be framed of the most sterling honesty, 
and whose conduct should conform to the most scrupu- 
lous morality, it is the man who administers public 
affairs. The most romantic notions of integrity are 
here not extravagant. As, under our institutions, pub- 
lic men will be, upon the whole, fair exponents of the 
character of their constituents, the plainest way to se- 
cure honest public men is to inspire those who make 
them with a right understanding of what political char- 
acter ought to be. Young men should be prompted to 
discriminate between the specious and the real, the art- 



88 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ful and the honest, the wise and the cunning, the 
patriotic and the pretender. I will sketch — 

VI. The Demagogue. The lowest of politicians is 
that man who seeks to gratify an invariable selfishness 
by pretending to seek the public good. For a profitable 
popularity he accommodates himself to all opinions, to 
all dispositions, to every side, and to each prejudice. 
He is a mirror, with no face of its own, but a smooth 
surface from which each man of ten thousand may see 
himself reflected. He glides from man to man, coincid- 
ing with their views, pretending their feelings, simulat- 
ing their tastes : with this one, he hates a man ; with 
that one, he loves the same man ; he favors a law, 
and he dislikes it ; he approves, and opposes ; he is on 
both sides at once, and seemingly wishes that he could 
be on one side more than both sides. He attends meet- 
ings to suppress intemperance, but at elections makes 
every grog-shop free to all drinkers. He can with equal 
relish plead most eloquently for temperance, or toss off 
a dozen glasses in a dirty grocery. He thinks that there 
is a time for everything, and therefore at one time he 
swears and jeers and leers with a carousing crew ; and 
at another time, having happily been converted, he dis- 
plays the various features of devotion. Indeed, he is a 
capacious Christian, an epitome of faith. He piously 
asks the class-leader of the welfare of his charge, for he 
was always a Methodist and always shall be, — until he 
meets a Presbyterian ; then he is a Presbyterian, old 
school or new, as the case requires. However, as he is 
not a bigot, he can afford to be a Baptist, in a good 
Baptist neighborhood, and with a wink he tells the 
zealous elder that he never had one of his children 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 89 

baptized, not he ! He whispers to the reformer that he 
abhors all creeds but baptism and the Bible. After all 
this, room will be found in his heart for the fugitive 
sects also, which come and go like clouds in a summer 
sky. His flattering attention at church edifies the 
simple-hearted preacher, who admires that a plain ser- 
mon should make a man whisper Amen, and weep. 
Upon the stump his tact is no less rare. He roars and 
bawls with courageous plainness on points about which 
all agree ; but on subjects where men differ his meaning 
is nicely balanced on a pivot, that it may dip either way. 
He depends for success chiefly upon humorous stories. 
A glowing patriot a telling stories is a dangerous antag- 
onist ; for it is hard to expose the fallacy of a hearty 
laugh, and men convulsed with merriment are slow to 
perceive in what way an argument is a reply to a story. 

Perseverance, effrontery, good-nature, and versatile 
cunning have advanced many a bad man higher than a 
good man could attain. Men will admit that he has 
not a single moral virtue ; but he is smart. We object 
to no man for amusing himself at the fertile resources 
of the politician here painted ; for sober men are some- 
times pleased with the grimaces and mischievous tricks 
of a versatile monkey ; but would it not be strange in- 
deed if they should select him for a ruler, or make him 
an exemplar to their sons ? 

VII. I describe next a more respectable and more 
dangerous politician, — the Party Man. He has asso- 
ciated his ambition, his interests, and his affections with 
a party. He prefers, doubtless, that his side should be 
victorious by the best means, and under the champion- 
ship of good men ; but rather than lose the victory, he 



90 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

will consent to any means, and follow any man. Thus, 
with a general desire to be upright, the exigency of his 
party constantly pushes him to dishonorable deeds. 
He opposes fraud by craft, lie by lie, slander by 
counter-aspersion. To be sure, it is wrong to misstate, 
to distort, to suppress or color facts ; it is wrong to em- 
ploy the evil passions ; to set class against class, — the 
poor against the rich, the country against the city, the 
farmer against the mechanic, one section against another 
section. But his opponents do it, and if they will take 
advantage of men's corruption, he must, or lose by his 
virtue. He gradually adopts two characters, a personal 
and a political character. All the requisitions of his 
conscience he obeys in his private character ; all the 
requisitions of his party he obeys in his political con- 
duct. In one character he is a man of principle ; in 
the other, a man of mere expedients. As a man he 
means to be veracious, honest, moral ; as a politician, 
he is deceitful, cunning, unscrupulous, — anything for 
party. As a man, he abhors the slimy demagogue ; as 
a politician, he employs him as a scavenger. As a man, 
he shrinks from the flagitiousness of slander ; as a poli- 
tician, he permits it, smiles upon it in others, rejoices 
in the success gained by it. As a man, he respects no 
one who is rotten in heart ; • as a politician, no man 
through whom victory may be gained can be too bad. 
As a citizen, he is an apostle of temperance ; as a poli- 
tician, he puts his shoulder under the men who deluge 
their track with whiskey, marching a crew of brawling 
patriots, pugnaciously drunk, to exercise the freeman's 
noblest franchise, the vote. As a citizen, he is con- 
siderate of the young, and counsels them wdth admirable 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 91 

wisdom; then, as a politician, he votes for tools, sup- 
porting for the magistracy worshipful aspirants scraped 
from the ditch, the grog-shop, and the brothel ; thus 
saying by deeds, which the young are quick to under- 
stand, " I jested, when I warned you of bad company ; 
for you perceive none worse than those whom I delight 
to honor." For his religion he will give up all his sec- 
ular interests ; but for his politics he gives up even his 
religion. He adores virtue, and rewards vice. Whilst 
bolstering up unrighteous measures, and more unright- 
eous men, he prays for the advancement of religion 
and justice and honor ! I would to God that his 
prayer might be answered upon his own political head ; 
for never was there a place where such blessings were 
more needed ! I am puzzled to know what will happen 
at death to this politic Christian, but most unchristian 
politician. Will both of his characters go heavenward 
together ? If the strongest prevails, he will certainly 
go to hell. If his weakest (which is his Christian 
character) is saved, what will become of his political 
character ? Shall he be sundered in two, as Solomon 
proposed to divide the contested infant ? If this style 
of character were not flagitiously wicked, it would still 
be supremely ridiculous ; but it is both. Let young 
men mark these amphibious exemplars to avoid their 
influence. The young have nothing to gain from those 
who are saints in religion and morals, and Machiavels 
in politics ; who have partitioned off their heart, invited 
Christ into one half and Belial into the other. 

It is wisely said that a strictly honest man who de- 
sires purely the public good, who will not criminally 
flatter the people, nor take part in lies or party slander, 



92 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

nor descend to the arts of the rat, the weasel, and the 
fox, cannot succeed in politics. It is calmly said by- 
thousands that one cannot be a politician and a Chris- 
tian. Indeed, a man is liable to downright ridicule if 
he speaks in good earnest of a scrupulously honest and 
religiously moral politician. I regard all such represen- 
tations as false. We are not without men whose career 
is a refutation of the slander. It poisons the com- 
munity to teach this fatal necessity of corruption in a 
course which so many must pursue. It is not strange, 
if such be the popular opinion, that young men include 
the sacrifice of strict integrity as a necessary element of 
a political life, and calmly agree to it, as to an inevitable 
misfortune, rather than to a dark and voluntary crime. 

Only if a man is an ignorant heathen, can he escape 
blame for such a decision ! A young man, at this day, 
in this land, who can coolly purpose a life of most un- 
manly guile, who means to earn his bread and fame by 
a sacrifice of integrity, is one who requires only tempta- 
tion and opportunity to become a felon. What a heart 
has that man who can stand in the very middle of the 
Bible, with its transcendent truths raising their glowing 
fronts on every side of him, and feel no inspiration but 
that of immorality and meanness ! He knows that for 
him have been founded the perpetual institutions of 
religion ; for him prophets have spoken, miracles been 
wrought, heaven robbed of its Magistrate, and the earth 
made sacred above all planets as the Eedeemer's burial- 
place ; — he knows it all, and plunges from this height 
to the very bottom of corruption ! He hears that he is 
immortal, and despises the immortality; that he is a 
son of God, and scorns the dignity ; an heir of heaven, 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 93 

and infamously sells his heirship and himself, for a con- 
temptible mess of loathsome pottage ! Do not tell me 
of any excuses. It is a shame to attempt an excuse ! 
If there were no religion, if that vast sphere, out of 
which glow all the supereminent truths of the Bible, 
was a mere emptiness and void, yet, methinks, the very 
idea of fatherland, the exceeding preciousness of the 
laws and liberties of a great people, would enkindle 
such a high and noble enthusiasm, that all baser feel- 
ings would be consumed ! But if the love of country, 
a sense of character, a manly regard for integrity, the 
example of our most illustrious men, the warnings of 
religion and all its solicitations, and the prospect of the 
future, — dark as perdition to the bad, and light as 
paradise to the good, — cannot inspire a young man to 
anything higher than a sneaking, truckling, dodging 
scramble for fraudulent fame and dishonest bread, it is 
because such a creature has never felt one sensation of 
manly virtue ; it is because his heart is a howling wil- 
derness, inhospitable to innocence. 

Thus have I sketched a few of the characters which 
abound in every community ; dangerous, not more by 
their direct temptations than by their insensible influ- 
ence. The sight of their deeds, of their temporary suc- 
cess, their apparent happiness, relaxes the tense rigidity 
of a scrupulous honesty, inspires a ruinous liberality of 
sentiment toward vice, and breeds the thoughts of evil ; 
and evil thoughts are the cockatrice's eggs, hatching 
into all bad deeds. 

Eemember, if by any of these you are enticed to 
ruin, you will have to bear it alone ! They are strong 



94 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

to seduce, but heartless to sustain their victims. They 
will exhaust your means, teach you to despise the God 
of your fathers, lead you into every sin, go with you 
while you afford them any pleasure or profit, and then, 
when the inevitable disaster of wickedness begins to 
overwhelm you, they will abandon whom they have de- 
bauched. When, at length, death gnaws at your bones 
and knocks at your heart ; when staggering and worn 
out, your courage wasted, your hope gone, your purity, 
and long, long ago your peace, — will he who first en- 
ticed your steps now serve your extremity with one 
office of kindness ? Will he stay your head, cheer your 
dying agony with one word of hope, or light the way for 
your coward steps to the grave, or w T eep when you are 
gone, or send one pitiful scrap to your desolate family ? 
What reveler wears crape for a dead drunkard ? What 
gang of gamblers ever intermitted a game for the death 
of a companion, or went on kind missions of relief to 
broken-down fellow-gamblers ? What harlot weeps for 
a harlot ? What debauchee mourns for a debauchee ? 
They would carouse at your funeral, and gamble on your 
coffin. If one flush more of pleasure were to be had 
by it, they would drink shame and ridicule to your 
memory out of your own skull, and roar in bacchanal 
revelry over your damnation ! All the shameless atro- 
cities of wicked men are nothing to their heartlessness 
toward each other when broken down. As I have seen 
worms writhing on a carcass, overcrawling each other, 
and elevating their fiery heads in petty ferocity against 
each other, while all were enshrined in the corruption 
of a common carrion, I have thought, ah ! shameful 
picture of wicked men tempting each other, abetting each 



PORTRAIT GALLERY. 95 

other, until calamity overtook thein, and then fighting 
and devouring or abandoning each other, without pity 
or sorrow or compassion or remorse. Evil men of 
. every degree will use you, flatter you, lead you on until 
you are useless ; then, if the virtuous do not pity you, 
or God compassionate, you are without a friend in the 
universe. 

My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If 
they say, Come with us, .... we shall find all precious 
substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil ; cast in thy 
lot among us ; let us all have one purse : my son, walk 
not thou in the way with them ; refrain thy feet from 
their path : for their feet run to evil, and make haste to 
shed Mood, .... and they lay in wait for their OWN 
blood, they lurk privily for their otun lives. 






GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his 
garments and made eottr parts, to every soldier a part, 
and also his coat. now the coat was without seam, woven 
from the top throughout. they said therefore among 
themselves, let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose 
it shall be. these things therefore the soldiers did." 

HAVE condensed into one account the sep- 
arate parts of this gambling transaction as 
narrated by each Evangelist. How marked 
in every age is a gambler's character ! The 
enraged priesthood of ferocious sects taunted Christ's 
dying agonies ; the bewildered multitude, accustomed 
to cruelty, could shout ; but no earthly creature, but a 
gambler, could be so lost to all feeling as to sit down 
coolly under a dying man to wrangle for his garments, 
and arbitrate their avaricious differences by casting dice 
for his tunic, with hands spotted with his spattered 
blood, warm and yet undried upon them. The descend- 
ants of these patriarchs of gambling, however, have 
taught us that there is nothing possible to hell, uncon- 
genial to these, its elect saints. In this lecture it is my 
disagreeable task to lead your steps down the dark path 
to their cruel haunts, there to exhibit their infernal pas- 
sions, their awful ruin, and their ghastly memorials. In 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 97 

this house of darkness, amid fierce faces gleaming with 
the fire of fiercer hearts, amid oaths and groans and 
fiendish orgies, ending in murders and strewn with 
sweltering corpses, — do not mistake, and suppose 
yourself in hell, — you are only in its precincts and 
vestibule. 

Gambling is the staking or winning of property upon 
mere hazard. The husbandman renders produce for his 
gains ; the mechanic renders the product of labor and 
skill for his gains ; the gambler renders for his gain the 
sleights of useless skill, or, more often, downright cheat- 
ing. Betting is gambling ; there is no honest equiva- 
lent to its gains. Dealings in fancy stocks are often- 
times sheer gambling, with all its worst evils. Profits 
so earned are no better than the profits of dice, cards, or 
hazard. When skill returns for its earnings a useful 
service, as knowledge, beneficial amusements, or profit- 
able labor, it is honest commerce. The skill of a pilot 
in threading a narrow channel, the skill of a lawyer in 
threading a still more intricate one, are as substantial 
equivalents for a price received as if they were mer- 
chant goods or agricultural products. But all gains of 
mere skill, which result in no real benefit, are gambling 
gains. 

Gaming, €ts it springs from a principle of our nature, 
has, in some form, probably existed in every age. We 
trace it in remote periods and among the most barbar- 
ous people. It loses none of its fascinations among a 
civilized people. On the contrary, the habit of fierce 
stimulants, the jaded appetite of luxury, and the satiety 
of wealth seem to invite the master excitant. Our 



98 , LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

land, not apt to be behind in good or evil, is full of 
gambling in all its forms, — the gambling of commerce, 
the gambling of bets and wagers, and the gambling of 
games of hazard. There is gambling in refined circles, 
and in the lowest ; among the members of our national 
government, and of our State governments. Thief gam- 
bles with thief, in jail ; the judge who sent them there, 
the lawyer who prosecuted, and the lawyer who de- 
fended them, often gamble too. This vice, once almost 
universally prevalent among the Western bar, and still 
too frequently disgracing its members, is, however, we 
are happy to believe, decreasing. In many circuits, not 
long ago, and in some now, the judge, the jury, and the 
bar shuffled cards by night and law by day, — dealing 
out money and justice alike. The clatter of dice and 
cards disturbs your slumber on the boat, and rings 
drowsily from the upper rooms of the hotel. This vice 
pervades the city, extends over every line of travel, and 
infests the most moral districts. The secreted lamp 
dimly lights the apprentices to their game ; with unsus- 
pected disobedience, boys creep out of their beds to it ; 
it goes on in the store close by the till ; it haunts the 
shop. The scoundrel in his lair, the scholar in -his 
room, the pirate on his ship, gay women at parties, 
loafers in the street-corner, public functionaries in their 
offices, the beggar under the hedge, the rascal in prison, 
and some professors of religion in the somnolent hours 
of the Sabbath, waste their energies by the ruinous 
excitement of the game. Besides these players, there 
are troops of professional gamblers, troops of hangers- 
on, troops of youth to be drawn in. An inexperienced 
eye would detect in our peaceful towns no signs of this 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 99 

vulture flock ; so in a sunny day, when all cheerful 
birds are singing merrily, not a buzzard can be seen • 
but let a carcass drop, and they will push forth their 
gaunt heads from their gloomy roosts, and come flap- 
ping from the dark woods to speck the air and dot the 
ground with their numbers. 

The universal prevalence of this vice is a reason for 
parental vigilance, and a reason of remonstrance from 
the citizen, the parent, the minister of the gospel, the 
patriot, and the press. I propose to trace its opening, 
describe its subjects, and detail its effects. 

A young man, proud of freedom, anxious to exert his 
manhood, has tumbled his Bible and sober books and 
letters of counsel into a dark closet. He has learned 
various accomplishments, — to flirt, to boast, to swear, to 
fight, to drink. He has let every one of these chains 
be put around him, upon the solemn promise of Satan 
that he would take them off whenever he wished. 
Hearing of the artistic feats of eminent gamblers, he 
emulates them. So he ponders the game. He teaches 
w^hat he has learned to his shopmates, and feels himself 
their master. As yet he has never played for stakes. 
It begins thus : Peeping into a bookstore, he watches 
till the sober customers go out ; then slips in, and with 
assumed boldness, not concealing his shame, he asks 
for cards, buys them, and hastens out. The first game 
is to pay for the cards. After the relish of playing for 
a stake, no game can satisfy them without a stake. A 
few nuts are staked, then a bottle of wine, an oyster- 
supper. At last they can venture a sixpence in actual 
money, just for the amusement of it. I need go no 
further ; whoever wishes to do anything with the lad 



100 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

can do it now. If properly plied and gradually led, he 
will go to any length, and stop only at the gallows. Do 
you doubt it ? let us trace him a year or two further on. 
With his father's blessing and his mother's tears, the 
young man departs from home. He has received his 
patrimony, and embarks for life and independence. 
Upon his journey he rests at a city ; visits the " school 
of morals " ; lingers in more suspicious places ; is seen 
by a sharper, and makes his acquaintance. The knave 
sits by him at dinner ; gives him the news of the place, 
and a world of advice ; cautions him against sharpers ; 
inquires if he has money, and charges him to keep it 
secret ; offers himself to make with him the rounds of 
the town, and secure him from imposition. At length, 
that he may see all, he is taken to a gaming-house, but, 
with apparent kindness, warned not to play. He stands 
by to see the various fortunes of the game ; some for- 
ever losing ; some, touch what number they will, gain- 
ing piles of gold. Looking in thirst where wine, is free. 
A glass is taken ; another of a better kind ; next, the 
best the landlord has, and two glasses of that. A change 
comes over the youth ; his exhilaration raises his cour- 
age and lulls his caution. Gambling seen seems a differ- 
ent thing from gambling painted by a pious father ! 
Just then his friend remarks that one might easily 
double his money by a few ventures, but that it was, 
perhaps, prudent not to risk. Only this was needed to 
fire his mind. What ! only prudence between me and 
gain? Then that shall not be long! He stakes; he 
wins. Stakes again ; wins again. Glorious ! I am the 
lucky man that is to break the bank ! He stakes, and 
wins again. His pulse races, his face burns, his blood 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 101 

is up, and fear gone. He loses ; loses again ; loses all 
his winnings ; loses more. But fortune turns again ; he 
wins anew. He has now lost all self-command. Gains 
excite him, and losses excite him more. He doubles 
his stakes ; then trebles them, — and all is swept. He 
rushes on, puts up his whole purse, and loses the whole ! 
Then he would borrow ; no man will lend. He is des- 
perate ; he will fight at a word. He is led to the street 
and thrust out. The cool breeze which blows upon his 
fevered cheek w r afts the slow and solemn stroke of the 
clock, — one, — two, — three, — four ; four of the morn- 
ing ! Quick work of ruin ! an innocent man destroyed 
in a night ! He staggers to his hotel, remembers, as he 
enters it, that he has not even enough to pay his bill. 
It now flashes upon him that his friend, who never had 
left him for an hour before, had stayed behind where 
his money is, and doubtless is laughing over his spoils. 
His blood boils with rage. But at length comes up the 
remembrance of home ; a parent's training and counsels 
for more than twenty years destroyed in a night ! 
" Good God ! what a wretch I have been ! I am not fit 
to live. I cannot go home. I am a stranger here. 0, 
that I were dead ! 0, that I had died before I knew 
this guilt, and were lying where my sister lies ! O 
God ! God ! my head will burst with agony ! " He 
stalks his lonely room with an agony which only the 
young heart knows in its first horrible awakening to 
remorse, — when it looks despair full in the face, and 
feels its hideous incantations tempting him to suicide. 
Subdued at length by agony, cowed and weakened by 
distress, he is sought again by those who plucked him. 
Cunning to subvert inexperience, to raise the evil pas- 



102 . LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

sions and to allay the good, they make him their pliant 
tool. 

Farewell, young man ! I see thy steps turned to that 
haunt again ! I see hope lighting thy face ; but it is a 
lurid light, and never came from heaven. Stop before 
that threshold. Turn, and bid farewell to home, fare- 
well to innocence, farewell to venerable father and aged 
mother ! The next step shall part thee from them all 
forever. And now henceforth be a mate to thieves, a 
brother to corruption. Thou hast made a league with 
death, and unto death shalt thou go. 

Let us here pause, to draw the likeness of a few who 
stand conspicuous in that vulgar crowd of gamblers, 
with which hereafter he will consort. The first is a 
taciturn, quiet man. No one knows when he comes 
into town or when he leaves. No man hears of his 
gaining ; for he never boasts, nor reports his luck. He 
spends little for parade; his money seems to go and 
come only through the game. He reads none, converses 
none, is neither a glutton nor a hard drinker ; he sports 
few ornaments, and wears plain clothing. Upon the 
whole, he seems a gentlemanly man ; and sober citizens 
say, " His only fault is gambling." What then is this 
only fault ? In his heart he has the most intense 
and consuming lust of play. He is quiet because every 
passion is absorbed in one ; and that one burning at the 
highest flame. He thinks of nothing else, cares only 
for this. All other things, even the hottest lusts of 
other men, are too cool to be temptations to him, so 
much deeper is the style of his passions. He will sit 
upon his chair, and no man shall see him move for 
hours, except to play his cards. He sees none come in, 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 103 

none go out. Death might groan on one side of the 
room, and marriage might sport on the other, — he 
would know neither. Every created influence is shut 
out ; one thing only moves him, — the game ; and that 
leaves not one pulse of excitability unaroused, but stirs 
his soul to the very dregs. 

Very different is the roistering gamester. He bears 
a jolly face, a glistening eye something watery through 
watching and drink. His fingers are manacled in rings ; 
his bosom glow T s with pearls and diamonds. He learns 
the time which he wastes from a watch full gorgeously 
carved (a,nd not with the most modest scenes), and 
slung around his neck by a ponderous golden chain. 
There is not so splendid a fellow to be seen sweeping 
through the streets. The landlord makes him welcome, 

— he will bear a full bill. The tailor smiles like May, 

— he will buy half his shop. Other places bid him 
welcome, — he will bear large stealings. 

Like the judge, he makes his circuit, but not for 
justice; like the preacher, he has his appointments, 
but not for instruction. His circuits are the race- 
courses, the crowded capital, days of general convoca- 
tion, conventions, and mass-gatherings. He will flame 
on the race-track, bet his thousands, and beat the ring 
at swearing, oaths vernacular, imported, simple, or com- 
pound. The drinking-booth smokes when he draws in 
his welcome suite. Did you see him only by day, flam- 
ing in apparel, jovial and free-hearted, at the restaura- 
teur or hotel, you would think him a prince let loose,. 

— a cross between Prince Hal and Falstaff. 

But night is his day. These are mere exercises, and 
brief prefaces to his real accomplishments. He is a 



104 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

good fellow who dares play deeper ; he is wild, indeed, 
who seems wilder ; and he is keen, indeed, who is 
sharper than he is, after all this show of frankness. No 
one is quicker, slyer, and more alert at a game. He 
can shuffle the pack till an honest man would as soon 
think of looking for a particular drop of water in the 
ocean as for a particular card in any particular place. 
Perhaps he is ignorant which is at the top and which at 
the bottom ! At any rate, watch him closely, or you 
will get a lean hand and he a fat one. A plain man 
would think him a wizard or the Devil. When he 
touches a pack they seem alive, and acting to his loill 
rather than his touch. He deals them like lightning ; 
they rain like snow-flakes, sometimes one, sometimes 
two, if need be four or five together, and his hand 
hardly moved. If he loses, very w ell, he laughs ; if he 
gains, he only laughs a little more. Full of stories, full 
of songs, full of wit, full of roistering spirit, — yet do 
not trespass too much upon his good-nature with in- 
sult. All this outside is only the spotted hide which 
covers the tiger. He who provokes this man shall see 
what lightning can break out of a summer-seeming 
cloud. 

These do not fairly represent the race of gamblers, — 
conveying too favorable an impression. There is one, 
often met on steamboats, traveling solely to gamble. 
He has the servants or steward or some partner in 
league with him, to fleece every unwary player whom 
he inveigles to a game. He deals falsely; heats his 
dupe to madness by drink, drinking none himself; 
watches the signal of his accomplice telegraphing his 
opponent's hand; at a stray look, he will slip your 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 105 

money off and steal it. To cover false playing, or to 
get rid of paying losses, he will lie fiercely and swear 
uproariously, and break up the play to fight with knife 
or pistol, — first scraping the table of every penny. 
"When the passengers are asleep he surveys the luggage, 
to see what may be worth stealing ; he pulls a watch 
from under the pillow of one sleeper, fumbles in the 
pockets of another, and gathers booty throughout the 
cabin. Leaving the boat before morning, he appears at 
some village hotel, a magnificent gentleman, a polished 
traveler, or even a distinguished nobleman ! 

There is another gambler, cowardly, sleek, stealthy, 
humble, mousing, and mean, — a simple bloodsucker. 
For money he will be a tool to other gamblers ; steal 
for them and from them: he plays the jackal, and 
searches victims for them, humbly satisfied to pick the 
bones afterward. Thus (to employ his own language) 
he ropes in the inexperienced young, flatters them, 
teaches them, inflames their passions, purveys to their 
appetites, cheats them, debauches them, draw r s them 
down to his own level, and then lords it over them 
in malignant meanness. Himself impure, he plunges 
others into lasciviousness, and with a train of reeking 
satellites, he revolves a few years in the orbit of the 
game, the brothel, and the doctor's shop, then sinks 
and dies ; the world is purer, and good men thank God 
that he is gone. 

Besides these, time would fail me to describe the 
ineffable dignity of a gambling judge ; the cautious, 
phlegmatic lawyer, gambling from sheer avarice ; the 
broken-down and cast-away politician, seeking in the 
game the needed excitement, and a fair field for all the 



106 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

base tricks' he once played off as a patriot ; the pert, 
sharp, keen jockey-gambler ; the soaked, obese, plethoric, 
wheezing bacchanal ; and a crowd of ignoble worthies, 
wearing all the badges and titles of vice throughout its 
base peerage. 

A detail of the evils of gambling should be preceded 
by an illustration of that constitution of mind out of 
which they mainly spring, — I mean its excitability. 
The body is not stored with a fixed amount of strength, 
nor the mind with a uniform measure of excitement ; 
but both are capable, by stimulation, of expansion of 
strength or feeling almost without limit. Experience 
shows that, within certain bounds, excitement is health- 
ful and necessary, but beyond this limit exhausting 
and destructive. Men are allowed to choose between 
moderate but long-continued excitement and intense 
but short-lived excitement. Too generally they prefer 
the latter: To gain this intense thrill, a thousand 
methods are tried. The inebriate obtains it by drink 
and drugs ; the politician, by the keen interest of the 
civil campaign; the young, by amusements which 
violently inflame and gratify their appetites. When 
once this higher flavor of stimulus has been tasted, all 
that is less becomes vapid and disgustful. A sailor 
tries to live on shore ; a few weeks suffice. To be sure, 
there is no hardship or cold or suffering ; but neither 
is there the strong excitement of the ocean, the gale, 
the storm, and the world of strange sights. The poli- 
tician perceives that his private affairs are deranged, 
his family neglected, his character aspersed, his feelings 
exacerbated. When men hear him confess that his 
career is a hideous waking dream, the race vexatious, 



GAMBLEKS AND GAMBLING. 107 

and the end vanity, they wonder that he clings to it ; 
but he knows that nothing but the fiery wine which he 
lias tasted will rouse up that intense excitement, now be- 
come necessary to his happiness. For this reason great 
men often cling to public office with all its envy, jealousy, 
care, toil, hates, competitions, and unrequited fidelity ; 
for these very disgusts and the perpetual struggle 
strike a deeper chord of excitement than is possible to 
the gentler touches of home, friendship, and love. Here, 
too, is the key to the real evil of promiscuous novel- 
reading, to the habit of revery and mental romancing. 
None of life's common duties can excite to such wild 
pleasure as these ; and they must be continued, or the 
mind reacts into the lethargy of fatigue and ennui. It 
is upon this principle that men love pain ; suffering is 
painful to a spectator; but in tragedies, at public 
executions, at pugilistic combats, at cock-fightings, 
horse-races, bear-baitings, bull-fights, gladiatorial shows, 
it excites a jaded mind as nothing else can. A tyrant 
torments for the same reason that a girl reads her tear- 
bedewed romance, or an inebriate drinks his dram. No 
longer susceptible even to inordinate stimuli, actual 
moans and shrieks, and the writhing of utter agony, 
just suffice to excite his worn-out sense, and inspire, 
probably, less emotion than ordinary men have in 
listening to a tragedy or reading a bloody novel. 

Gambling is founded upon the very worst perversion 
of this powerful element of our nature. It heats every 
part of the mind like an oven. The faculties which 
produce calculation, pride of skill, of superiority, love 
of gain, hope, fear, jealousy, hatred, are absorbed in the 
game, and exhilarated or exacerbated by victory or 



108 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

defeat. These passions are doubtless excited in men 
by the daily occurrences of life ; but then they are 
transient, and counteracted by a thousand grades of 
emotion, which rise and fall like the undulations of the 
sea. But in gambling there is no intermission, no 
counteraction. The whole mind is excited to the 
utmost, and concentrated at its extreme point of exci- 
tation for hours and days, with the additional waste of 
sleepless nights, profuse drinking, and other congenial 
immoralities. Every other pursuit becomes tasteless ; 
for no ordinary duty has in it a stimulus which can 
scorch a mind which now refuses to burn without 
blazing, or to feel an interest which is not intoxication. 
The victim of excitement is like a mariner who vent- 
ures into the edge of a whirlpool for a motion more 
exhilarating than plain sailing. He is unalarmed during 
the first few gyrations, for escape is easy. But each 
turn sweeps him farther in ; the power augments, the 
speed becomes terrific, as he rushes toward the vortex, 
all escape now hopeless. A noble ship went in ; it is 
spit out in broken fragments, splintered spars, crushed 
masts, and cast up for many a rood along the shore. 
The specific evils of gambling may now be almost 
imagined. 

I. It 'diseases the mind, unfitting it for the duties of 
life. Gamblers are seldom industrious men in any 
useful vocation. A gambling mechanic finds his labor 
less relishful as his passion for play increases. He 
grows unsteady, neglects his work, becomes unfaithful 
to promises ; what he performs he slights. Little jobs 
seem little enough ; he desires immense contracts, whose 
uncertainty has much the excitement of gambling, — 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 109 

and for the best of reasons ; and in the pursuit of great 
and sudden profits, by wild schemes, he stumbles over 
into ruin, leaving all who employed or trusted him in 
the rubbish of his speculations. 

A gambling lawyer, neglecting the drudgery of his 
profession, will court its exciting duties. To explore 
authorities, compare reasons, digest, and write, — this 
is tiresome. But to advocate, to engage in fiery con- 
tests with keen opponents, — this is nearly as good as 
gambling. Many a ruined client has cursed the law, 
and cursed a stupid jury, and cursed everybody for his 
irretrievable loss, except his lawyer, who gambled all 
night when he should have prepared the case, and came 
half asleep and debauched into court in the morning to 
lose a good case mismanaged, and snatched from his 
gambling hands by the art of sober opponents. 

A gambling student, if such a thing can be, with- 
draws from thoughtful authors to the brilliant and 
spicy ; from the pure among these to the sharp and 
ribald ; from all reading about depraved life to seeing ; 
from sight to experience. Gambling vitiates the im- 
agination, corrupts the tastes, destroys the industry; 
for no man will drudge for cents who gambles for 
dollars by the hundred, or practice a piddling economy 
while, with almost equal indifference, he makes or loses 
five hundred in a night. 

II. For a like reason it destroys all domestic habits 

and affections. Home is a prison to an inveterate 

gambler; there is no air the?e that he can breathe. 

For a moment he may sport with his children and 

smile upon his wife ; but his heart, its strong passions, 

are not there. A little branch-rill may flow through 
6 



110 LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

the family, but the deep river of his affections flows 
away from home. On the issue of a game, Tacitus 
narrates that the ancient Germans would stake their 
property, their wives, their children, and themselves. 
What less than this is it, when a man will stake that 
property which is to give his family bread, and that 
honor which gives them place and rank in society ? 

When 'playing becomes desperate gambling, the heart 
is a hearth where all the fires of gentle feelings have 
smouldered to ashes ; and a thorough-paced gamester 
could rattle dice in a charnel-house, and wrangle for 
his stakes amid murder, and pocket gold dripping with 
the blood of his own kindred. 

III. Gambling is the parent and companion of every 
vice which pollutes the heart or injures society. 

It is a practice so disallowed among Christians, and 
so excluded by mere moralists, and so hateful to indus- 
trious and thriving men, that those who practice it are 
shut up to themselves ; unlike lawful pursuits, it is not 
modified or restrained by collision with others. Gam- 
blers herd with gamblers. They tempt and provoke 
each other to all evil, without affording one restraint, 
and without providing the counterbalance of a single 
virtuous impulse. They are like snakes coiling among 
snakes, poisoned and poisoning ; like plague patients, in- 
fected and diffusing infection ; each sick, and all con- 
tagious. It is impossible to put bad men together and 
not have them grow worse. The herding of convicts 
promiscuously produced such a fermentation of de- 
pravity, that, long ago, legislators forbade it. When 
criminals, out of jail, herd together by choice, the same 
corrupt nature will doom them to growing loathsome- 
ness, because to increasing wickedness. 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. Ill 

IV. It is a provocative of thirst. The bottle is 
almost as needful as the card, the ball, or the dice. 
Some are seduced to drink ; some drink for imitation, 
at first, and fashion. When super-excitements, at in- 
tervals, subside, their victim cannot bear the deathlike 
gloom of the reaction; and, by drugs or liquor, fire 
up their system to the glowing point again. There- 
fore, drinking is the invariable concomitant of the 
theater, circus, race-course, gaming-table, and of all 
amusements which powerfully excite all but the moral 
feelings. When the double fires of dice and brandy 
blaze under a man, he will soon be consumed. If men 
are found who do not drink, they are the more notice- 
able, because exceptions. 

V. It is, even in its fairest form, the almost inev- 
itable cause of dishonesty. Bobbers have robbers' 
honor ; thieves have thieves' law ; and pirates conform 
to pirates' regulations. But where is there a gambler's 
code ? One law there is, and this not universal, Pay 
your gambling debts. But on the wide question, how is 
it fair to win, what law is there ? What will shut a 
man out from a gambler's club ? May he not discover 
his opponent's hand by fraud ? May not a concealed 
thread, pulling the significant one ; one, two ; or one, 
tivo, three; or the sign of a bribed servant or waiter, 
inform him, and yet his standing be fair ? May he not 
cheat in shuffling, and yet be in full orders and ca- 
nonical ? May he not cheat in dealing, and yet be a 
welcome gambler ? May he not steal the money from 
your pile by laying his hands upon it, just as any other 
thief would, and yet be an approved gambler ? May 
not the whole code be stated thus : Pay what you lose, 



112 LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

get what you can, and in any way yon can ! I am told, 
perhaps, that there are honest gamblers, gentlemanly 
gamblers. Certainly; there are always ripe apples 
before there are rotten. Men always begin before they 
end ; there is always an approximation before there is 
contact. Players will play truly till they get used to 
playing untruly, will be honest till they cheat, will 
be honorable till they become base; and when you 
have said all this, what does it amount to but this, that 
men who really gamble really cheat; and that they 
only do not cheat who are not yet real gamblers ? If 
this mends the matter, let it be so amended. I have 
spoken of gamesters only among themselves : this is the 
least part of the evil ; for who is concerned when lions 
destroy bears, or wolves devour wolf-cubs, or snakes 
sting vipers ? In respect to that department of gam- 
bling which includes the roping in of strangers, young 
men, collecting-clerks, and unsuspecting green-hands, 
and robbing them, I have no language strong enough 
to mark dow r n its turpitude, its infernal rapacity. After 
hearing many of the scenes not unfamiliar to every 
gambler, I think Satan might be proud of their deal- 
ings, and look up to them with that deferential respect 
with which one monster gazes upon a superior. There 
is not even the expectation of honesty. Some scullion- 
herald of iniquity decoys the unwary wretch into the 
secret room ; he is tempted to drink, made confident by 
the specious simplicity of the game, allowed to win; 
and every bait and lure and blind is employed ; then 
he is plucked to the skin by tricks which appear as 
fair as honesty itself. The robber avows his deed, does 
it openly ; the gambler sneaks to the same result under 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 113 

skulking pretenses. There is a frank way and a mean 
way of doing a wicked thing. The gambler takes the 
meanest way of doing the dirtiest deed. The victim's 
own partner is sucking his blood ; it is a league of 
sharpers, to get his money at any rate ; and the wicked- 
ness is so unblushing and unmitigated, that it gives, at 
last, an instance of what the deceitful human heart, 
knavish as it is, is ashamed to try to cover or conceal ; 
but confesses with helpless honesty that it is fraud, 
cheating, stealing, robbery, and nothing else. 

If I walk the dark street, and a perishing, hungry 
wretch meets me and bears off my purse with but a 
single dollar, the whole town awakes ; the officers are 
alert, the myrmidons of the law scout and hunt and 
bring in the trembling culprit to stow him in the jail. 
But a worse thief may meet me, decoy my steps, and 
by a greater dishonesty filch ten thousand dollars, — 
and what then ? The story spreads, the sharpers move 
abroad unharmed, no one stirs. It is the day's conver- 
sation ; and like a sound it rolls to the distance, and 
dies in an echo. 

Shall such astounding iniquities be vomited out 
amidst us, and no man care ? Do we love our children, 
and yet let them walk in a den of vipers ? Shall we 
pretend to virtue and purity and religion, and yet 
make partners of our social life men whose heart has 
conceived such damnable deeds, and whose hands have 
performed them ? Shall there be even in the eye of 
religion no difference between the corrupter of youth 
and their guardian ? Are all the lines and marks of 
morality so effaced, is the nerve and courage of virtue 
so quailed by the frequency and boldness of flagitious 



114 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

crimes, that men, covered over with wickedness, shall 
find their iniquity no obstacle to their advancement 
among a Christian people ? 

In almost every form of iniquity there is some shade 
or trace of good. We have in gambling a crime stand- 
ing alone, — dark, malignant, uncompounded wicked- 
ness ! It seems in its full growth a monster without a 
tender mercy, devouring its own offspring without one 
feeling but appetite. A gamester, as such, is the cool, 
calculating, essential spirit of concentrated avaricious 
selfishness. His intellect is a living thing, quickened 
with double life for villainy ; his heart is steel of four- 
fold temper. "When a man begins to gamble he is as 
a noble tree full of sap, green with leaves, a shade to 
beasts, and a covert to birds. When one becomes a 
thorough gambler, he is like that tree lightning-smitten, 
rotten in root, dry in branch, and sapless ; seasoned 
hard and tough : nothing lives beneath it, nothing on 
its branches, unless a hawk or a vulture perches for a 
moment to whet its beak, and fly screaming away for 
its prey. 

To every young man who indulges in the least form 
of gambling I raise a warning voice. Under the spe- 
cious name of amusement you are laying the founda- 
tion of gambling. Playing is the seed from which 
comes up gambling. It is the light wind which brings 
the storm. It is the white frost which preludes the 
winter. You are mistaken, however, in supposing that 
it is harmless in its earliest beginnings. Its terrible 
blight belongs, doubtless, to a later stage ; but its con- 
sumption of time, its destruction of industry, its distaste 
for the calmer pleasures of life, belong to the very 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 115 

beginning. You will begin to play with every generous 
feeling. Amusement will be the plea. At the begin- 
ning the game will excite enthusiasm, pride of skill, 
the love of mastery, and the love of money. The love 
of money, at first almost imperceptible, at last will rule 
out all the rest, like Aaron's rod, — a serpent, swal- 
lowing every other serpent. Generosity, enthusiasm, 
pride and skill, love of mastery, will be absorbed in one 
mighty feeling, the savage lust of lucre. 

There is a downward climax in this sin. The open- 
ing and ending are fatally connected, and drawn toward 
each other with almost irresistible attraction. If gam- 
bling is a vortex, playing is the outer ring of the 
maelstrom. The thousand-pound stake, the whole 
estate put up on a game, — what are these but the 
instruments of kindling that tremendous excitement 
which a diseased heart craves ? What is the amuse- 
ment for which you play but the excitement of the game ? 
And for what but this does the jaded gambler play ? 
You differ from him only in the degree of the same 
feeling. Do not solace yourself that you shall escape 
because others have ; for they stopped, and you go on. 
Are you as safe as they, when you are in the gulf- 
stream of perdition, and they on the shore ? But have 
you ever asked how many have escaped ? 'Not one in 
a thousand is left unblighted ! You have nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine chances against you and one for 
you, and will you go on ? If a disease should stalk 
through the town, devouring whole families, and sparing 
not one in five hundred, would you lie down under it 
quietly because you had one chance in five hundred? 
Had a scorpion stung you, would it alleviate your 



116 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

pangs to reflect that you had only one chance in one 
hundred ? Had you swallowed corrosive poison, would 
it ease your convulsions to think there was only one 
chance in fifty for you ? I do not call every man w r ho 
plays a gambler, but a gambler in embryo. Let me 
trace your course from the amusement of innocent 
playing to its almost inevitable end. 

Scene the first. A genteel coffee-house, whose hu- 
mane screen conceals a line of grenadier bottles, and 
hides respectable blushes from impertinent eyes. There 
is a quiet little room opening out of the bar, and here 
sit four jovial youths. The cards are out, the wines are 
in. The fourth is a reluctant hand ; he does not love 
the drink nor approve the game. He anticipates and 
fears the result of both. Why is he here ? He is a 
whole-souled fellow, and is afraid to seem ashamed of 
any fashionable gayety. He will sip his wine upon the 
importunity of a friend newly come to town, and is too 
polite to spoil that friend's pleasure by refusing a part 
in the game. They sit, shuffle, deal; the night wears 
on, the clock telling no tale of passing hours, — the 
prudent liquor-fiend has made it safely dumb. The 
night is getting old; its dank air grows fresher; the 
east is gray; the gaming and drinking and hilarious 
laughter are over, and the youths wending homeward. 
What says conscience ? No matter what it says ; they 
did not hear, and we will not. Whatever was said, it 
was vqry shortly answered thus: "This has not been 
gambling ; all were gentlemen ; there was no cheating ; 
simply a convivial evening ; no stakes except the bills 
incident to the entertainment. If anybody blames a 
young man for a little innocent exhilaration on a special 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 117 

occasion, he is a superstitious bigot ; let him croak ! " 
Such a garnished game is made the text to justify the 
whole round of gambling. Let us then look at 

Scene the second. In a room so silent that there is no 
sound except the shrill cock crowing the morning, 
where the forgotten candles burn dimly over the long 
and lengthened wick, sit four men. Carved marble 
could not be more motionless, save their hands. Pale, 
watchful, though weary, their eyes pierce the cards or 
furtively read each other's faces. Hours have passed 
over them thus. At length they rise without words ; 
some, with a satisfaction which only makes their faces 
brightly haggard, scrape off the piles of money ; others, 
dark, sullen, silent, fierce, move away from their lost 
money. The darkest and fiercest of the four is that 
young friend who first sat down to make out a game. 
He will never sit so innocently again. What says he 
to his conscience now ? "I have a right to gamble ; I 
have a right to be damned, too, if I choose ; whose busi- 
ness is it ? " 

Scene the third. Years have passed on. He has seen 
youth ruined, at first with expostulation, then with 
only silent regret, then consenting to take part of the 
spoils ; and, finally, he has himself decoyed, duped, and 
stripped them without mercy. Go with me into that 
dilapidated house, not far from the landing, at New 
Orleans. Look into that dirty room. Around a broken 
table, sitting upon boxes, kegs, or rickety chairs, see a 
filthy crew dealing cards smouched with tobacco, grease, 
and liquor. One has a pirate-face burnished and burnt 
with brandy; a shock of grizzly, matted hair, half 
covering his villain eyes, which glare out like a wild 



118 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

beast's from a thicket. Close by him wheezes a white- 
faced, dropsical wretch, vermin covered, and stenchful. 
A scoundrel Spaniard and a burly negro (the j oiliest of 
the four) complete the group. They have spectators, — 
drunken sailors, and ogling, thieving, drinking women, 
who should have died long ago, when all that was 
womanly died. Here hour draws on hour, sometimes 
with brutal laughter, sometimes with threat and oath 
and uproar. The last few stolen dollars lost, and temper 
too, each charges each with cheating, and high words 
ensue, and blows ; and the whole gang burst out the 
door, beating, biting, scratching, and rolling over and 
over in the dirt and dust. The worst, the fiercest, the 
drunkest of the four is our friend who began by making 
up the game. 

Scene the fourth. Upon this bright day stand with 
me, if you would be sick of humanity, and look over that 
multitude of men kindly gathered to see a murderer 
hung At last a guarded cart drags on a thrice-guarded 
wretch. At the gallows' ladder his courage fails. His 
coward feet refuse to ascend ; dragged up, he is sup- 
ported by bustling officials; his brain reels, his eye 
swims, while the meek minister utters a final prayer by 
his leaden ear. The prayer is said, the noose is fixed, 
the signal is given ; a shudder runs through the crowd 
as he swings free. After a moment his convulsed limbs 
stretch down and hang heavily and still ; and he who 
began to gamble to make up a game, and ended with 
stabbing an enraged victim whom he had fleeced, has 
here played his last game, — himself the stake. 

I feel impelled, in closing, to call the attention of all 
-ober citizens to some potent influences which are ex- 
erted in favor of gambling. 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 119 

In our civil economy we have legislators to devise 
and enact wholesome laws, lawyers to counsel and aid 
those who need the laws' relief, and judges to determine 
and administer the laws. If legislators, lawyers, and 
judges are gamblers, with what hope do we warn off the 
young from this deadly fascination, against such author- 
itative examples of high public functionaries ? With 
what eminent fitness does that judge press the bench 
who, in private, commits the vices which officially he is 
set to condemn ! With what singular terrors does he 
frown on a convicted gambler with whom he played 
last night and will play again to-night ! How wisely 
should the fine be light which the sprightly criminal 
will win and pay out of the judge's own pocket ! 

With the name of Judge is associated ideas of im- 
maculate purity, sober piety, and fearless, favorless 
justice. Let it then be counted a dark crime for a 
recreant official so far to forget his reverend place and 
noble office as to run the gantlet of filthy vices, and make 
the word Judge to suggest an incontinent trifler, who 
smites with his mouth and smirks with his eye ; who 
holds the rod to strike the criminal, and smites only the 
law to make a gap for criminals to pass through ! If 
God loves this land, may he save it from truckling, 
drinking, swearing, gambling, vicious judges ! * 

With such judges I must associate corrupt Legisla- 
tors, whose bawling patriotism leaks out in all the 

* The general eminent integrity of the Bench is unquestionable, 
and no remarks in the text are to be construed as an oblique aspersion 
of the profession. But the purer our judges generally, the move 
shameless is it that some will not abandon either their vices or their 
office. 



120 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

sinks of infamy at the capital. These living exemplars 
of vice pass still-born laws against vice. Are such men 
sent to the capital only to practice debauchery ? La- 
borious seedsmen, they gather every germ of evil; 
and, laborious sowers, at home they strew them far 
and wide. It is a burning shame, a high outrage, that 
public men, by corrupting the young with the example 
of manifold vices, should pay back their constituents 
for their honors. 

Our land has little to fear from abroad, and much 
from within. We can bear foreign aggression, scarcity, 
the revulsions of commerce, plagues, and pestilences; 
but we cannot bear vicious judges, corrupt courts, 
gambling legislators, and a vicious, corrupt, and gam- 
bling constituency. Let us not be deceived. The decay 
of civil institutions begins at the core. The outside 
wears all the lovely hues of ripeness when the inside 
is rotting. Decline does not begin in bold and startling- 
acts ; but, as in autumnal leaves, in rich and glowing 
colors. Over diseased vitals consumptive laws wear 
the hectic blush, a brilliant eye, and transparent skin. 
Could the public sentiment declare that personal 
morality is the first element of patriotism, that cor- 
rupt legislators are the most pernicious of criminals, 
that the judge who lets the villain off is the villain's 
patron, that tolerance of crime is intolerance of virtue, 
our nation might defy all enemies and live forever. 

And now, my young friends, I beseech you to let 
alone this evil before it be meddled with. You are 
safe from vice when you avoid even its appearance, 
and only then. The first steps to wickedness are im- 
perceptible. We do not wonder at the inexperience of 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 121 

Adam; but it is wonderful that six thousand years' 
repetition of the same arts and the same uniform 
disaster should have taught men nothing; that gen- 
eration after generation should perish, and the wreck 
be no warning. 

The mariner searches his chart for hidden rocks, 
stands off from perilous shoals, and steers wide of reefs 
on which hang shattered morsels of wrecked ships, and 
runs in upon dangerous shores with the ship manned, 
the wheel in hand, and the lead constantly sounding. 
But the mariner upon life's sea carries no chart of other 
men's voyages, drives before every wind that will speed 
him, draws upon horrid shores with slumbering crew, 
or heads in upon roaring reefs as though he would not 
perish where thousands have perished before him. 

Hell is populated with the victims of harmless 
amusements. Will man never learn that the way to 
hell is through the valley of deceit ? The power of 
Satan to hold his victims is nothing to that mastery of 
art by which he first gains them. When he approaches 
to charm us, it is not as a grim fiend, gleaming from a 
lurid cloud, but as an angel of light radiant with inno- 
cence. His words fall like dew upon the flower, as 
musical as the crystal drop warbling from a fountain. 
Beguiled by his art, he leads you to the enchanted 
ground. 0, how it glows with every refulgent hue of 
heaven ! Afar off he marks the dismal gulf of vice and 
crime, its smoke of torment slowly rising, and rising 
forever; and he himself cunningly warns you of its 
dread disaster, for the very purpose of blinding and 
drawing you thither. He leads you to captivity through 
all the bowers of lulling magic. He plants your foot 



122 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

on odorous flowers; he fans your cheek with balmy 
breath ; he overhangs your head with rosy clouds ; he 
fills your ear with distant, drowsy music, charming 
every sense to rest. ye who have thought the way 
to hell was bleak and frozen as Norway, parched and 
barren as Sahara, strewed like Golgotha with bones and 
skulls reeking with stench like the vale of Gehenna, — 
witness your mistake ! The way to hell is gorgeous. 
It is a highway, cast up ; no lion is there, no ominous 
bird to hoot a warning, no echoings of the wailing-pit, 
no lurid gleams of distant fires, or moaning sounds of 
hidden woe. Paradise is imitated to build you a way 
to death ; the flowers of heaven are stolen and poisoned ; 
the sweet plant of knowledge is here ; the pure w T hite 
flower of religion; seeming virtue and the charming 
tints of innocence are scattered all along like native 
herbage. The enchanted victim travels on. Standing 
afar behind, and from a silver trumpet, a heavenly mes- 
senger sends down the wind a solemn warning : There 

IS A WAY WHICH SEEMETH RIGHT TO MAN, BUT THE END 

thereof is death. And again, with louder blast : The 

WISE MAN FORESEETH THE EVIL ; FOOLS PASS ON AND ARE 

punished. Startled for a moment, the victim pauses, 
gazes round upon the flowery scene, and whispers, Is it 
not harmless ? Harmless ! responds a serpent from the 
grass. Harmless ! echo the sighing winds. Harmless ! 
re-echo a hundred airy tongues. If now a gale from 
heaven might only sweep the clouds away through 
which the victim gazes! 0, if God would break that 
potent power w r hich chains the blasts of hell, and let 
the sulphur-stench roll up the vale, how would the 
vision change, — the road become a track of dead men's 



GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. 123 

bones, the heavens a lowering storm, the balmy 
breezes distant waitings, and all those balsam-shrubs 
that lied to his senses sweat drops of blood upon their 
poison boughs ! 

Ye who are meddling with the edges of vice, ye are 
on this road, and utterly duped by its enchantments. 
Your eye has already lost its honest glance, your taste 
has lost its purity, your heart throbs with poison. The 
leprosy is all over you ; its blotches and eruptions cover 
you. Your feet stand on slippery places, whence in due 
time they shall slide, if you refuse the warning w^hich 
I raise. They shall slide from heaven, never to be 
visited by a gambler; slide down to that fiery abyss 
below you, out of which none ever come. Then, when 
the last card is cast, and the game over, and you lost, — 
then, when the echo of your fall shall ring through hell, 
— in malignant triumph shall the Arch-Gambler, who 
cunningly played for your soul, have his prey! Too 
late you shall look back upon life as a mighty game, in 
which you were the stake and Satan the winner. 






VI. 

THE STRANGE WOMAN. 

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profit- 
able FOR DOCTRINE, FOR REPROOF, FOR CORRECTION, FOR INSTRUC- 
TION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS: THAT THE MAN OF GOD MAY BE PERFECT, 
THOROUGHLY FURNISHED UNTO ALL GOOD WORKS." — 2 Tim. iii. 
16, 17. 

>UBELY one cannot declare the whole coun- 
sel of God, and leave out a subject which 
is interwoven with almost every chapter of 
the Bible. So inveterate is the prejudice 
against introducing into the pulpit the subject of licen- 
tiousness, that ministers of the gospel, knowing the 
vice to be singularly dangerous and frequent, have yet 
by silence almost complete, or broken only by circuitous 
allusions, manifested their submission to the popular 
taste * That vice upon which it has pleased God to be 
more explicit and full than upon any other; against 
which he uttered his voice upon Sinai, Thou shalt not 
commit adultery; upon which the lawgiver, Moses, 
legislated with boldness ; which judges condemned ; 

* The liberality with which this lecture was condemned before I 
had written it, and the prompt criticisms afterwards, of those who did 
not hear it, have induced me to print it almost unaltered. Otherwise 
I should have changed many portions of it from forms of expression 
peculiar to the pulpit into those better suited to a book. 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 125 

upon which the venerable prophets spake oft and 
again; against which Christ with singular directness 
and plainness uttered the purity of religion ; and upon 
which he inspired Paul to discourse to the Corinthians, 
and to almost every primitive church; — this subject, 
upon which the Bible does not so much speak as 
thunder, not by a single bolt, but peal after peal, we 
are solemnly warned not to introduce into the pulpit ! 

I am entirely aware of the delicacy of introducing 
this subject into the pulpit. 

One difficulty arises from the sensitiveness of unaf- 
fected purity. A mind retaining all the dew and 
freshness of innocence shrinks from the very idea of 
impurity, as if it were sin to have thought or heard 
of it, — as if even the shadow of the evil would leave 
some soil upon the unsullied whiteness of the virgin - 
mind. Shall we be angry with this ? or shall we rudely 
rebuke so amiable a feeling, because it regrets a neces- 
sary duty ? God forbid ! If there be, in the world, 
that whose generous faults should be rebuked only by 
the tenderness of a reproving smile, it is the mistake 
of inexperienced purity. We would as soon pelt an 
angel, bewildered among men and half smothered with 
earth's noxious vapors, for his trembling apprehensions. 
To any such, who have half wished that I might not 
speak, I say: Nor w r ould I, did I not know that 
purity will suffer more by the silence of shame than 
by the honest voice of truth. 

Another difficulty springs from the nature of the 
English language, which has hardly been framed in a 
school where it may wind and fit itself to all the phases 
of impurity. But were I speaking French, — the dialect 



126 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

of refined sensualism and of licentious literature, the 
language of a land where taste and learning and art 
wait upon the altars of impurity, — then I might 
copiously speak of this evil, nor use one plain word. 
But I thank God the honest English tongue which I 
have learned has never been so bred to this vile sub- 
servience of evil. "We have plain words enough to say 
plain things, but the dignity and manliness of our lan- 
guage has never grown supple to twine around brilliant 
dissipation. It has too many plain words, vulgar words, 
vile words ; but it has few mirror- words, which cast a 
sidelong image of an idea ; it has few words which wear 
a meaning smile, a courtesan glance significant of some- 
thing unexpressed. When public vice necessitates pub- 
lic reprehension, it is, for these reasons, difficult to 
redeem plainness from vulgarity. We must speak 
plainly and properly ; or else speak by innuendo, which 
is the Devil's language. 

Another difficulty lies in the confused echoes which, 
vile men create in every community when the pulpit 
disturbs them. Do I not know the arts of cunning 
men ? Did not Demetrius the silversmith (worthy to 
have lived in our day !) become most wonderfully pious, 
and run all over the city to rouse up the dormant zeal 
of Diana's worshippers, and gather a mob, to whom he 
preached that Diana must he cared for ; when to his 
fellow-craftsmen he told the truth, our craft is in 
danger? Men will not quietly be exposed. They 
foresee the rising of a virtuously retributive public sen- 
timent, as the mariner sees the cloud of the storm 
rolling up the heavens. They strive to forestall and 
resist it. How loudly will a liquor-fiend protest against 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 127 

temperance lectures, — sinful enough for redeeming 
victims from his paw ! How sensitive some men to 
a church bell ! They are high-priests of revivals at a 
horse-race, a theater, or a liquor supper ; but a religious 
revival pains their sober minds. Even thus the town 
will be made vocal with outcries against sermons on 
licentiousness. Who cries out ? — the sober, the 
immaculate, the devout ? It is the voice of the son 
of midnight ; it is the shriek of the strange woman's 
victim ; and their sensitiveness is not of purity, but of 
fear. Men protest against the indecency of the pul 
pit, because the pulpit makes them feel their own inde- 
cency ; they would drive us from the investigation of 
vice, that they may keep the field open for their own 
occupancy. I expect such men's reproaches. I know 
the reasons of them. I am not to be turned by them, 
not one hair's breadth, if they rise to double their pres- 
ent volume, until I have hunted home the wolf to his 
lair, and ripped off Ms brindled hide in his very den ! 

Another difficulty exists in the criminal fastidious- 
ness of the community upon this subject. This is the 
counterfeit of delicacy. It resembles it less than paste 
jewels do the pure pearl. Where delicacy, the atmos- 
phere of a pure heart, is lost, or never was had, a 
substitute is sought ; and is found in forms of delicacy, 
not in its feelings. It is a delicacy of exterior, of eti- 
quette, of show, of rules ; not of thought, not of pure 
imagination, not of the crystal-current of the heart. 
Criminal fastidiousness is the Pharisee's sepulcher; 
clean, white, beautiful without, full of dead men's bones 
within, — the Pharisee's platter, the Pharisee's cup, — 
it is the very Pharisee himself; and, like him of old, 



128 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

lays on burdens grievous to be borne. Delicacy is a 
spring which God has sunken in the rock, which the 
winter never freezes, the summer never heats ; which 
sends its quiet waters with music down the flowery 
hillside, and which is pure and transparent, because it 
has at the bottom no sediment. I would that every 
one of us had this well of life gushing from our hearts, 
• — an everlasting and full stream ! 

False modesty always judges by the outside ; it cares 
how you speak more than what That which would 
outrage in plain words may be implied furtively, in 
the sallies of wit or fancy, and be admissible. Every 
day I see this giggling modesty, which blushes at Ian- 
guage more than at its meaning ; which smiles upon 
base things, if they will appear in the garb of virtue. 
That disease of mind to which I have frequently alluded 
in these lectures, which leads it to clothe vice beauti- 
fully and then admit it, has had a fatal effect also upon 
literature ; giving currency to filth by coining it in the 
mint of beauty. It is under the influence of this dis- 
ease of taste and heart, that we hear expressed such 
strange judgments upon English authors. Those who 
speak plainly what they mean, when they speak at all, 
are called rude and vulgar ; while those upon whose ex- 
quisite sentences the dew of indelicacy rests like so 
many brilliant pearls of the morning upon flowers, are 
called our moral authors ! 

The most dangerous writers in the English language 
are those whose artful insinuations and mischievous 
polish reflect upon the mind the image of impurity, 
without presenting the impurity itself. A plain vul- 
garity in a writer is its own antidote. It is like a foe 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 129 

who attacks us openly, and gives us opportunity of 
defence. But impurity, secreted under beauty, is like 
a treacherous friend who strolls with us in a garden of 
sweets, and destroys us by the odor of poisonous flowers 
proffered to our senses. Let the reprehensible gross- 
ness of Chaucer be compared with the perfumed, 
elaborate brilliancy of Moore's license. I would not 
willingly answer at the bar of God for the writings of 
either; but of the two, I would rather bear the sin 
of Chaucer's plain-spoken words, which never suggest 
more than they say, than the sin of Moore's language, 
over which plays a witching hue and shade of licen- 
tiousness. I would rather put the downright and often 
abominable vulgarity of Swift into my child's hand, 
than the scoundrel indirections of Sterne. They are 
both impure writers, but not equally harmful. The 
one says what he means, the other means what he dare 
not say. Swift is, in this respect, Belial in his own 
form ; Sterne is Satan in the form of an angel of light : 
and many will receive the temptation of the angel who 
would scorn the proffer of the demon. What an in- 
credible state of morals in the English Church, that 
permitted two of her eminent clergy to be the most 
licentious writers of the age, and as impure as almost 
any of the English literature ! Even our most classic 
authors have chosen to elaborate, with exquisite art, 
scenes which cannot but have more effect upon the pas- 
sions than upon the taste. Embosomed in the midst of 
Thomson's glowing Seasons one finds descriptions un- 
surpassed by any part of Don Juan ; and as much more 
dangerous than it is, as a courtesan countenanced by 
virtuous society is more dangerous than when among 



130 LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

her own associates. Indeed, an author who surprises 
you with refined indelicacies in moral and reputable 
writings is worse than one who, without disguise, and 
on purpose, serves up a whole banquet of indelicacies. 
Many will admit poison morsels well sugared, who 
would revolt from an infernal feast of impurity. There 
is little danger that robbers will tempt the honest young 
to robbery. Some one first tempts him to falsehood, 
next to petty dishonesty, next to pilfering, then to 
thieving ; and now only will the robber influence him, 
when others have handed him down to his region of 
crime. Those authors who soften evil and show de- 
formity with tints of beauty, who arm their general 
purity with the occasional sting of impurity, — these 
are they who take the feet out of the strait path, the 
guiltiest path of seduction. He who feeds an inflamed 
appetite with food spiced to fire is less guilty than he 
who hid in the mind the leaven which wrought this 
appetite. The polished seducer is certainly more dan- 
gerous than the vulgar debauchee, both in life and in 
literature. 

In this contrast are to be placed Shakespeare and 
Bulwer : Shakespeare is sometimes gross, but not often 
covertly impure. Bulwer is slyly impure, but not often 
gross. I am speaking, however, only of Shakespeare's 
plays, and not of his youthful fugitive pieces ; w r hich, 
I am afraid, cannot have part in this exception. He 
began wrong, but grew better. At first he wrote by 
the taste of his age ; but when a man, he wrote to his 
own taste : and though he is not without sin, yet, com- 
pared with his contemporaries, he is not more illustrious 
for his genius than for his purity. Eeprehension, to be 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 131 

effective, should be just. No man is prepared to excuse 
properly the occasional blemishes of this wonderful 
writer, who has not been shocked at the immeasurable 
licentiousness of the dramatists of his cycle. One play 
of Ford, one act, one conversation, has more abomina- 
tions than the whole world of Shakespeare. Let those 
women who ignorantly sneer at Shakespeare remember 
that they are indebted to him for the noblest conceptions 
of woman's character in our literature, — the more praise- 
worthy, because he found no models in current authors. 
The occasional touches of truth and womanly delicacy 
in the early dramatists are no compensation for the 
wholesale coarseness and vulgarity of their female char- 
acters. In Shakespeare, woman appears in her true 
form, — pure, disinterested, ardent, devoted ; capable of 
the noblest feelings and of the highest deeds. The 
language of many of Shakespeare's women would be 
shocking in our day; but so would be the domestic 
manners of that age. The same actions may in one 
age be a sign of corruption, and be perfectly innocent 
in another. No one is shocked that in a pioneer-cabin 
one room serves for a parlor, a kitchen, and a bedroom 
for the whole family and for promiscuous guests. 
Should fastidiousness revolt at this as vulgar, the 
vulgarity must be accredited to the fastidiousness, and 
not to the custom, Yet it would be inexcusable in 
a refined metropolis, and everywhere the moment it 
ceases to be necessary. But nothing in these remarks 
must apologize for language or deed which indicates an 
impure heart. No age, no custom, may plead extenua- 
tion for essential lust ; and no sound mind can refrain 
from commendation of the master dramatist of the 



132 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

world, when he learns that, in writing for a most licen- 
tious age, he rose above it so far as to become something 
like a model to it of a more virtuous way. Shake- 
speare left the dramatical literature immeasurably 
purer than it came to him. 

Bulwer has made the English novel literature more 
vile than he found it. The one was a reformer, the 
other an implacable corrupter. We respect and admire 
the one (while we mark his faults) because he with- 
stood his age ; and we despise with utter loathing the 
other, whose specific gravity of wickedness sunk him 
below the level of his own age. With a moderate 
caution, Shakespeare may be safely put into the hands 
of the young. I regard the admission of Bulwer as a 
crime against the first principles of virtue. 

In all the cases which I have considered, you will 
remark a greater indulgence to that impurity which 
breaks out on the surface, than to that which lurks 
in the blood and destroys the constitution. It is the 
curse of our literature that it is traversed by so many 
rills of impurity. It is a vast champaign, waving witti 
unexampled luxuriance of flower and vine and fruit; 
but the poisonous flower everywhere mingles with the 
pure, and the deadly cluster lays its cheek on the 
wholesome grape ; nay, in the same cluster grow both 
the harmless and the hurtful berry j so that the hand 
can hardly be stretched out to gather flower or fruit 
without coming back poisoned. It is both a shame 
and an amazing wonder that the literature of a Chris- 
tian nation should reek with a filth which Pagan an- 
tiquity could scarcely endure ; that the ministers of 
Christ should have left floating in the pool of offensive 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 133 

writings much that would have brought blood to the 
cheek of a Eoman priest, and have shamed an actor of 
the school of Aristophanes. Literature is, in turn, both 
the cause and effect of the spirit of the age. Its effect 
upon this age has been to create a lively relish for 
exquisitely artful licentiousness, and disgust only for 
vulgarity. A witty, brilliant, suggestive indecency is 
tolerated for the sake of its genius. An age which 
translates and floods the community with French 
novels (inspired by Venus and Bacchus), which re- 
prints in popular forms Byron and Bulwer and Moore 
and Fielding, proposes to revise Shakespeare and expur- 
gate the Bible ! Men who, at home, allow Don Juan to 
lie within reach of every reader, will not allow a minis- 
ter of the gospel to expose the evil of such a literature. 
To read authors whose lines drop with the very gall of 
death ; to vault in elegant dress as near the edge of in- 
decency as is possible without treading over; to express 
the utmost possible impurity so dexterously that not a 
vulgar word is used, but rosy, glowing, suggestive lan- 
guage, — this, with many, is refinement. But to expose 
the prevalent vice, to meet its glittering literature with 
the plain and manly language of truth, to say nothing 
except what one desires to say plainly, — this, it seems, 
is vulgarity ! 

One of the first steps in any reformation must be, 
not alone nor first the correction of the grossness, but 
of the elegances, of impurity. Could our literature and 
men's conversation be put under such authority that 
neither should express by insinuation what dared not 
be said openly, in a little time men would not dare to 
say at all what it would be indecent to speak plainly. 



134 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

If there be here any disciples of Bulwer ready to 
disport in the very ocean of license, if its waters only 
seem translucent ; who can read and relish all that fires 
the heart, and are only then distressed and shocked 
when a serious man raises the rod to correct and repress 
the evil ; if there be here any who can drain his goblet 
of mingled wine, and only shudder at crystal water; 
any who can see this modern prophet of villainy strike 
the rock of corruption to water his motley herd of 
revelers, but hate him who, out of the rock of truth, 
should bid gush the healthful stream, — I beseech them 
to bow their heads in this Christian assembly, and 
weep their tears of regret in secret places, until the 
evening service be done, and Bulwer can stanch their 
tears, and comfort again their wounded hearts. 

Whenever an injunction is laid upon plain and unde- 
niable Scripture truth, and I am forbidden, upon pain 
of your displeasure, to preach it, then I should not so 
much regard my personal feelings as the affront which 
you put upon my Master ; and in my inmost soul I shall 
resent that affront. There is no esteem, there is no 
love, like that which is founded in the sanctity of relig- 
ion. Between many of you and me that sanctity exists. 
I stood by your side when you awoke in the dark valley 
of conviction and owned yourselves lost. I have led 
you by the hand out of the darkness ; by your side I 
have prayed, and my tears have mingled with yours. I 
have bathed you in the crystal waters of a holy baptism ; 
and when you sang the song of the ransomed captive, it 
filled my heart with a joy as great as that which uttered 
it. Love, beginning in such scenes, and drawn from so 
sacred a fountain, is not commercial, not fluctuating. 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 135 

Amid severe toils, and not a few anxieties, it is the 
crown of rejoicing to a pastor. What have we in this 
world but you ? To be your servant in the gospel, we 
renounce all those paths by which other men seek pre- 
ferment. Silver and gold is not in our houses, and our 
names are not heard where fame proclaims others. Eest 
we are forbidden until death; and, girded with the 
whole armor, our lives are spent in the dust and smoke 
of continued battle. But even such love will not 
tolerate bondage. We can be servants to love, but 
never slaves to caprice; still less can we heed the 
mandates of iniquity. 



The proverbs of Solomon are designed to furnish us a 
series of maxims for every relation of life. There will 
naturally be the most said where there is the most 
needed. If the frequency of warning against any sin 
measures the liability of man to that sin, then none is 
worse than impurity. In many separate passages is 
the solemn warning against the strange woman given 
with a force which must terrify all but the innocent 
or incorrigible, and with a delicacy which all will 
feel but those whose modesty is the fluttering of an 
impure imagination. I shall take such parts of all 
these passages as will make out a connected narrative. 

When wisdom entereth into thy heart, and hnovAedge 
is 'pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, 
. ... to deliver thee from the strange woman, v'hich 
fiattereth with her tongue ; her lips drop as a honeycomb, 
her mouth is smoother than oil. She sitteth at the door of 



136 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, to call 
to passengers who go right on their ways: * Whoso is 
simple, let him turn in hither!' To him that loanteth 
understanding, she saith, "Stolen ivaters are sweet, and 
bread eaten in secret is pleasant " ; but he knoweth not 
that the dead are there. Lust not after her beauty, neither 
let her take thee with her eyelids. She fw*saketh the guide 
of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. Lest 
thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are mov- 
able, that thou canst not know them. Remove thy ivay 
far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house, 
for her house inclineth unto death. She has cast down 
many wounded ; yea, many strong men have been slain 
by her. Her house is the way to hell, going doivn to the 
chamber of death ; none that go unto her return again ; 
neither take they hold of the paths of life. Let not thy 
heart decline to her ways, lest thou mourn at last, when 
thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say, "How 
have I hated instruction, and m,y heart despised reproof. 
L was in all evil in the midst of the congregation and 
assembly!' 

I. Can language be found which can draw a corrupt 
beauty so vividly as this : Which forsaketh the guide of 
her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God ? Look 
out upon that fallen creature whose gay sally through 
the street calls out the significant laugh of bad men, the 
pity of good men, and the horror of the pure. Was not 
her cradle as pure as ever a loved infant pressed ? 
Love soothed its cries. Sisters watched its peaceful 
sleep, and a mother pressed it fondly to her bosom. 
Had you afterwards, when spring flowers covered the 
earth, and every gale was odor, and every sound was 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 137 

music, seen her, fairer than the lily or the violet, search- 
ing them, would you not have said, " Sooner shall the 
rose grow poisonous than she ; both may wither, but 
neither corrupt." And how often, at evening, did she 
clasp her tiny hands in prayer ! How often did she 
put the wonder-raising questions to her mother, of God 
and heaven and the dead, as if she had seen heavenly 
things in a vision ! As young womanhood advanced, 
and these foreshadowed graces ripened to the bud and 
burst into bloom, health glowed in her cheek, love 
looked from her eye, and purity was an atmosphere 
around her. Alas, she forsook the guide of her youth! 
Faint thoughts of evil, like a far-off cloud which the 
sunset gilds, came first ; nor does the rosy sunset blush 
deeper along the heaven, than her cheek at the first 
thought of evil. Now, ah, mother, and thou guiding 
elder sister, could you have seen the lurking spirit em- 
bosomed in that cloud, a holy prayer might have broken 
the spell, a tear have washed its stain ! Alas, they saw 
it not ! She spoke it not ; she was forsaking the guide 
of her youth. She thinketh no more of heaven. She 
breatheth no more prayers. She hath no more peniten- 
tial tears to shed, until, after a long life, she drops 
the bitter tear upon the cheek of despair, — then her 
only suitor. Thou hast forsaken the covenant of thy 
God. Go down ! fall never to rise ! Hell opens to be 
thy home ! 

O Prince of torment, if thou hast transforming 
power, give some relief to this once innocent child 
whom another has corrupted ! Let thy deepest dam- 
nation seize him who brought her hither; let his 
coronation be upon the very mount of torment, and 



138 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

the rain of fiery hail be his salutation ! He shall be 
crowned with thorns poisoned and anguish-bearing, and 
every woe beat upon him, and every wave of hell roll 
over the first risings of baffled hope. Thy guilty 
thoughts and guilty deeds shall flit after thee with 
bows which never break, and quivers forever emptying 
but never exhausted. If Satan hath one dart more 
poisoned than another, if God hath one bolt more trans- 
fixing and blasting than another, if there be one hideous 
spirit more unrelenting than others, they shall be thine, 
most execrable wretch, who led her to forsake the guide 
of her youth, and to abandon the covenant of her God. 

II. The next injunction of God to the young is upon 
the ensnaring danger of beauty. Desire not her beauty 
in thy heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. 
God did not make so much of nature with exquisite 
beauty, or put within us a taste for it, without object. 
He meant that it should delight us. He made every 
flower to charm us. He never made a color, nor grace- 
ful flying bird, nor silvery insect, without meaning to 
please our taste. When he clothes a man or woman 
with beauty, he confers a favor, did we know how to 
receive it. Beauty, with amiable dispositions and ripe 
intelligence, is more to any woman than a queen's 
crown. The peasant's daughter, the rustic belle, if 
they have woman's sound discretion, may be rightfully 
prouder than kings' daughters ; for God adorns those 
who are both good and beautiful, man can only conceal 
the want of beauty by blazing jewels. 

As moths and tiny insects flutter around the bright 
blaze which was kindled for no harm, so the foolish 
young fall down burned and destroyed by the blaze of 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 139 

beauty. As the flame which burns to destroy the in- 
sect is consuming itself and soon sinks into the socket, 
so beauty, too often, draws on itself that ruin which it 
inflicts upon others. 

If God hath given thee beauty, tremble ; for it is as 
gold in thy house ; thieves and robbers will prowl 
around and seek to possess it. If God hath put beauty 
before thine eyes, remember how many strong men 
have been cast down wounded by it. Art thou stronger 
than David ? Art thou stronger than mighty patri- 
archs, — than kings and princes, who by its fascina- 
tions have lost peace and purity, and honor and riches, 
and armies, and even kingdoms ? Let other men's 
destruction be thy wisdom ; for it is hard to reap pru- 
dence upon the field of experience. 

III. In the minute description of this dangerous 
creature, mark next how seriously we are cautioned of 
her wiles. 

Her wiles of dress. Coverings of tapestry and the fine 
linen of Egypt are hers ; the perfumes of myrrh and 
aloes and cinnamon. Silks and ribbons, laces and rings, 
gold and equipage ; ah, how mean a price for damna- 
tion ! The wretch who would be hung simply for the 
sake of riding to the gallows on a golden chariot, clothed 
in king's raiment, what a fool were he! Yet how 
many consent to enter the chariot of Death, — drawn 
by the fiery steeds of lust which fiercely fly, and stop 
not for food or breath till they have accomplished their 
fatal journey, — if they may spread their seat with 
flowery silks, or flaunt their forms with glowing apparel 
and precious jewels ! 

Her wiles of speech. Beasts may not speak; this 



140 LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

honor is too high for them. To God's imaged son this 
prerogative belongs, to ntter thought and feeling in 
articulate sounds. We may breathe our thoughts to a 
thousand ears, and infect a multitude with the best 
portions of our soul. How, then, has this soul's breath, 
this echo of our thoughts, this only image of our feel- 
ings, been perverted, that from the lips of sin it hath 
more persuasion than from the lips of wisdom ! What 
horrid wizard hath put the world under a spell and 
charm, that words from the lips of a strange woman 
shall ring upon the ear like tones of music ; while words 
from the divine lips of religion fall upon the startled 
ear like the funeral tones of the burial-bell ! Philos- 
ophy seems crabbed ; sin, fair. Purity sounds morose 
and cross ; but from the lips of the harlot words drop 
as honey and flow smoother than oil ; her speech is 
fair, her laugh is merry as music. The eternal glory 
of purity has no luster, but the deep damnation of lust 
is made as bright as the gate of heaven. 

Her wiles of love. Love is the mind's light and 
heat ; it is that tenuous air in which all the other 
faculties exist, as we exist in the atmosphere. A mind 
of the greatest stature, without love, is like the huge 
pyramid of Egypt, chill and cheerless in all its dark 
halls and passages. A mind with love is as a king's 
palace lighted for a royal festival. 

Shame that the sweetest of all the mind's attributes 
should be suborned to sin ! that this daughter of God 
should become a Ganymede to arrogant lusts, the cup- 
bearer to tyrants ! yet so it is. Devil-tempter ! will 
thy poison never cease ? shall beauty be poisoned ? 
shall language be charmed? shall love be made to 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 141 

defile like pitch, and burn as the living coals ? Her 
tongue is like a bended bow, which sends the silvery 
shaft of flattering words. Her eyes shall cheat thee, her 
dress shall beguile thee ; her beauty is a trap, her sighs 
are baits, her words are lures, her love is poisonous, her 
flattery is the spider's web spread for thee. O, trust 
not thy heart nor ear with Delilah ! The locks of the 
mightiest Samson are soon shorn off, if he will but lay 
his slumbering head upon her lap. He who could 
slay heaps upon heaps of Philistines, and bear upon his 
huge shoulders the ponderous iron gate, and pull down 
the vast temple, was yet too weak to contend with one 
wicked, artful woman ! Trust the sea with thy tiny 
boat, trust the fickle wind, trust the changing skies of 
April, trust the miser's generosity, the tyrant's mercy ; 
but, ah ! simple man, trust not thyself near the artful 
woman, armed in her beauty, her cunning raiment, her 
dimpled smiles, her sighs of sorrow, her look of love, 
her voice of flattery ; for if thou hadst the strength 
of ten Ulysses, unless God help thee, Calypso shall 
make thee fast, and hold thee in her island. 

Next, beware the wile of her reasonings. To him that 
wanteth understanding she saith, Stolen waters are sweet, 
and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. I came forth to 
meet thee, and I have found thee. 

What says she in the credulous ear of inexperience ? 
Why, she tells him that sin is safe ; she swears to him 
that sin is pure ; she protests to him that sin is inno- 
cent. Out of history she will entice him, and say : 
Who hath ever refused my meat-offerings and drink- 
offerings ? What king have I not sought ? What con- 
queror have I not conquered ? Philosophers have not, 



142 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

in all their wisdom, learned to hate me. I have been 
the guest of the world's greatest men. The Egyptian 
priest, the Athonian sage, the Eoman censor, the rude 
Gaul, have all worshiped in my temple. Art thou 
afraid to tread where Plato trod, and the pious Socrates ? 
Art thou wiser than all that ever lived ? 

Nay, she readeth the Bible to him ; she goeth back 
along the line of history, and readeth of Abraham and 
of his glorious compeers ; she skippeth past Joseph with 
averted looks, and readeth of David and of Solomon ; 
and whatever chapter tells how good men stumbled, 
there she has turned down a leaf, and will persuade 
thee, with honeyed speech, that the best deeds of good 
men were their sins, and that thou shouldst only imitate 
them in their stumbling and falls. 

Or, if the Bible will not cheat thee, how will she 
plead thine own nature ; how will she whisper, God hath 
made thee so. How, like her father, will she lure thee 
to pluck the apple, saying, Thou shalt not surely die. 
And she will hiss at virtuous men, and spit on modest 
women, and shake her serpent tongue at any purity 
which shall keep thee from her ways. 0, then, listen 
to what God says : With much fair speech she causeth 
him to yield ; with the flattery of her lips she forced him. 
He goeth after her as an ox goeth to slaughter, or as a 
fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike 
through his liver, — as a hird hasteth to a snare and 
hnoweth not that it is for his life. 

I will point only to another wile. When inexpe- 
rience has been beguiled by her infernal machinations, 
how, like a flock of startled birds, will spring up late 
regrets and shame and fear ; and, worst of all, how will 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 143 

conscience ply her scorpion- whip and lash thee, utter- 
ing with stern visage, * Thou art dishonored, thou art a 
wretch, thou art lost ! " When the soul is full of such 
outcry, memory cannot sleep ; she wakes, and while 
conscience still plies the scourge, will bring back to 
thy thoughts youthful purity, home, a mother's face, a 
sister's love, a father's counsel. Perhaps it is out of 
the high heaven that thy mother looks down to see thy 
baseness. 0, if she has a mother's heart, — nay, but 
she cannot weep for thee there ! 

These wholesome pains, not to be felt if there were 
not yet health in the mind, would save the victim, 
could they have time to work. But how often have I 
seen the spider watch, from his dark round hole, the 
struggling fly, until he began to break his web ; and 
then dart out to cast his long, lithe arms about him, and 
fasten new cords stronger than ever. So, God saith, 
the strange woman shall secure her ensnared victims, 
if they struggle : Lest thou slioiddst ponder the path of 
life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them. 

She is afraid to see thee soberly thinking of leaving 
her and entering the path of life ; therefore her ways 
are movable. She multiplies devices, she studies a 
thousand new wiles, she has some sweet word for every 
sense, — - obsequience for thy pride, praise for thy vanity, 
generosity for thy selfishness, religion for thy con- 
science, racy quips for thy wearisomeness, spicy scandal 
for thy curiosity. She is never still, nor the same ; but 
evolving as many shapes as the rolling cloud, and as 
many colors as dress the wide prairie. 

IV. Having disclosed her wiles, let me show you 
what God says of the chances of escape to those who 



144 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

once follow her : None that go unto her return again, 
neither take they hold of the paths of life. The strength 
of this language was not meant absolutely to exclude 
hope from those who, having wasted their substance in 
riotous living, would yet return ; but to warn the un- 
fallen into what an almost hopeless gulf they plunge, if 
they venture. Some may escape, — as here and there a 
mangled sailor crawls out of the water upon the beach, 
the only one or two of the whole crew; the rest are 
gurgling in the wave with impotent struggles, or already 
sunk to the bottom. There are many evils which hold 
their victims by the force of habit ; there are others 
which fasten them by breaking their return to society. 
Many a person never reforms, because reform would 
bring no relief. There are other evils which hold men 
to them, because they are like the beginning of a fire ; 
they tend to burn with fiercer and wider flames, until 
all fuel is consumed, and go out only when there is 
nothing to burn. Of this last kind is the sin of licen- 
tiousness ; and when the conflagration once breaks out, 
experience has shown what the Bible long ago declared, 
that the chances of reformation are few indeed. The 
certainty of continuance is so great, that the chances of 
escape are dropped from the calculation ; and it is said, 
roundly, none that go unto her return again. 

V. We are repeatedly warned against the strange 
woman's house. 

There is no vice like licentiousness to delude with 
the most fascinating proffers of delight, and fulfil the 
promise with the most loathsome experience. All vices 
at the beginning are silver-tongued, but none so impas- 
sioned as this. All vices in the end cheat their dupes, 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 145 

but none with such overwhelming disaster as licentious- 
ness. I shall describe by an allegory its specious 
seductions, its plausible promises, its apparent inno- 
cence, its delusive safety, its deceptive joys, — their 
change, their sting, their flight, their misery, and the 
victim's ruin. 

Her house has been cunningly planned by an evil 
architect to attract and please the attention. It stands 
in a vast garden full of enchanting objects. It shines 
in glowing colors, and seems full of peace and full of 
pleasure. All the signs are of unbounded enjoyment, 
safe, if not innocent. Though every beam is rotten, and 
the house is the house of death, and in it are all the 
vicissitudes of infernal misery, yet to the young it ap- 
pears a palace of delight. They will not believe that 
death can lurk behind so brilliant a fabric. Those who 
are within look out and pine to return, and those who 
are without look in and pine to enter. Such is the 
mastery of deluding sin. 

That part of the garden which borders on the high- 
way of innocence is carefully planted. There is not a 
poison weed nor thorn nor thistle there. Ten thousand 
flowers bloom, and waft a thousand odors. A victim 
cautiously inspects it ; but it has been too carefully pat- 
terned upon innocency to be easily detected. This outer 
garden is innocent ; innocence is the lure to wile you 
from the path into her grounds ; innocence is the bait 
of that trap by which she has secured all her victims. 
At the gate stands a comely porter, saying blandly, 
Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. Will the youth 
enter ? Will he seek her house ? To himself he says, 
" I will enter only to see the garden, — its fruits, its 



146 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

flowers, its birds, its arbors, its warbling fountains ! " He 
is resolved in virtue. He seeks wisdom, not pleasure. 
Dupe ! you are deceived already ; and this is your 
first lesson of wisdom. He passes, and the porter leers 
behind him. He is within an Enchanter's garden. 
Can he not now return, if he wishes ? He will not 
wish to return, until it is too late. He ranges the outer 
garden near to the highway, thinking, as he walks, 
" How foolishly have I been alarmed at pious lies about 
this beautiful place ! I heard it was hell ; I find it is 
paradise ! '* 

Emboldened by the innocency of his first steps, he 
explores the garden farther from the road. The flowers 
grow richer ; their odors exhilarate ; the very fruit 
breathes perfume like flowers, and birds seem intoxi- 
cated with delight among the fragrant shrubs and 
* loaded trees. Soft and silvery music steals along the air. 
" Are angels singing ? O, fool that I was, to fear 
this place ! it is all the heaven I need ! Ridiculous 
priest, to tell me that death was here, where all is 
beauty, fragrance, and melody ! Surely, death never 
lurked in so gorgeous apparel as this. Death is grim 
and hideous." He has come near to the strange 
woman's house. If it was beautiful from afar, it is 
celestial now ; for his eyes are bewitched with magic. 
When our passions enchant us, how beautiful is the 
w^ay to death ! In every window are sights of pleasure ; 
from every opening issue sounds of joy, — the lute, the 
harp, bounding feet, and echoing laughter. Nymphs 
have descried this pilgrim of temptation ; they smile 
and beckon. Where are his resolutions now ? This is 
the virtuous youth who came to observe ! He has 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 147 

already seen too much ; but he will see more : he will 
taste, feel, regret, weep, wail, die ! The most beautiful 
nymph that eye ever rested on approaches with decent 
guise and modest gestures, to give him hospitable wel- 
come. For a moment he.recalls his home, his mother, 
his sister-circle ; but they seem far away, dim, power- 
less. Into his ear the beautiful herald pours the sweetest 
sounds of love : " You are welcome here, and worthy. 
You have early wisdom, to break the bounds of super- 
stition, and to seek these grounds where summer never 
ceases and sorrow never comes. Hail, and welcome, to 
the house of pleasure ! " There seemed to be a response 
to these words ; the house, the trees, and the very air 
seemed to echo, " Hail, and welcome ! " In the still- 
ness which followed, had the victim been less intoxi- 
cated, he might have heard a clear and solemn voice 
which seemed to fall straight down from heaven : 
Come not nigh the door of her house. Her house 
is the way to hell, going down to the chambers 

OF DEATH! 

It is too late. He has gone in, who shall never 
return. He goeth after her straightway as an ox goeth to 
the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, 
.... andhiovjeth not that it is for his life. 

Enter with me, in imagination, the strange woman's 
house, where God grant you may never enter in any 
other way. There are five wards, Pleasure, Satiety, 
Discovery, Disease, and Death. 

Ward of Pleasure. — The eye is dazzled with the 
magnificence of its apparel, — elastic velvet, glossy silks, 
burnished satin, crimson drapery, plushy carpets. Ex- 
quisite pictures glow upon the walls ; carved marble 



148 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

adorns every niche. The inmates are deceived by these 
lying shows ; they dance, they sing ; with beaming 
eyes they utter softest strains of flattery and graceful 
compliment. They partake the amorous wine and the 
repast which loads the table. They eat, they drink, 
they are blithe and merry. Surely, they should be ; 
for after this brief hour they shall never know purity 
nor joy again. For this moment's revelry they are sell- 
ing heaven. The strange woman walks among her 
guests in all her charms ; fans the flame of joy, scatters 
grateful odors, and urges on the fatal revelry. As her 
poisoned wine is quaffed, and the gay creatures begin 
to reel, the torches wane and cast but a twilight. One 
by one the guests grow somnolent ; and, at length, they 
all repose. Their cup is exhausted, their pleasure is 
forever over, life has exhaled to an essence, and that is 
consumed. "While they sleep, servitors, practiced to 
the work, remove them all to another ward. 

Ward of Satiety. — Here reigns a bewildering twilight 
through which can hardly be discerned the wearied in- 
mates, yet sluggish upon their couches. Overflushed 
with dance, sated with wine and fruit, a fitful drowsi- 
ness vexes them. They wake to crave ; they taste to 
loathe ; they sleep to dream ; they wake again from 
unquiet visions. They long for the sharp taste of 
pleasure, so grateful yesterday. Again they sink, re- 
pining, to sleep ; by starts they rouse at an ominous 
dream; by starts they hear strange cries. The fruit 
burns and torments, the wine shoots sharp pains 
through their pulse. Strange wonder fills them. They 
remember the recent joy, as a reveler in the morning 
thinks of his midnight madness. The glowing garden 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 149 

and the banquet now seem all stripped and gloomy. 
They meditate return; pensively they long for their 
native spot. At sleepless moments mighty resolutions 
form, — substantial as a dream. Memory grows dark. 
Hope will not shine. The past is not pleasant, the 
present is wearisome, and the future gloomy. 

Ward of Discovery. — In the third ward no decep- 
tion remains. The floors are bare, the naked walls 
drip filth, the air is poisonous with sickly fumes, 
and echoes with mirth concealing hideous misery. 
None supposes that he has been happy. The past 
seems like the dream of the miser, who gathers gold 
spilled like rain upon the road, and wakes, clutching 
his bed and crying, " Where is it ? " On your right 
hand, as you enter, close by the door, is a group of 
fierce felons in deep drink with drugged liquor. With 
red and swollen faces, or white and thin, or scarred 
with ghastly corruption ; with scowling brows, baleful 
eyes, bloated lips, and demoniac grins; in person all 
uncleanly, in morals all debauched, in peace bankrupt, 
— the desperate wretches wrangle one with the other, 
swearing bitter oaths, and heaping reproaches each 
upon each. Around the room you see miserable crea- 
tures unappareled, or dressed in rags, sobbing and 
moaning. That one who gazes out at the window, 
calling for her mother and weeping, was right tenderly 
and purely bred. She has been baptized twice, — once 
to God and once to the Devil. She sought this place 
in the very vestments of God's house. " Call not on 
thy mother ; she is a saint in heaven, and cannot hear 
thee ! " Yet all night long she dreams of home and 
childhood, and wakes to sigh and weep; and between 
her sobs she cries, "Mother! mother!" 



150 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Yonder is a youth, once a servant at God's altar. 
His hair hangs tangled and torn, his eyes are bloodshot, 
his face is livid, his fist is clinched. All the day he 
wanders up and down, cursing sometimes himself and 
sometimes the wretch that brought him hither; and 
when he sleeps he dreams of hell, and then he wakes 
to feel all he dreamed. This is the ward of reality. 
All know why the first rooms looked so gay, they 
were enchanted. It was enchanted wine they drank, 
and enchanted fruit they ate ; now they know the pain 
of fatal food in every limb. 

Ward of Disease. — Ye that look wistfully at the 
pleasant front of this terrific house, come with me now, 
and look long into the terror of this ward, for here are 
the seeds of sin in their full-harvest form. We are in 
a lazar-room ; its air oppresses every sense, its sights con- 
found our thoughts, its sounds pierce our ear, its stench 
repels us ; it is full of diseases. Here a shuddering 
wretch is clawing at his breast to tear away that worm 
which gnaws his heart. By him is another, whose 
limbs are dropping from his ghastly trunk. Next swel- 
ters another in reeking filth, his eyes rolling in bony 
sockets, every breath a pang, and every pang a groan. 
But yonder, on a pile of rags, lies one whose yells of 
frantic agony appall every ear. Clutching his rags with 
spasmodic grasp, his swollen tongue lolling from a 
blackened mouth, his bloodshot eyes glaring and roll- 
ing, he shrieks oaths ; now blaspheming God, and now 
imploring him. He hoots and shouts, and shakes his 
grisly head from side to side, cursing or praying ; now 
calling death, and then, as if driving away fiends, yell- 
ing, " Avaunt ! avaunt ! " 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 151 

Another has been ridden by pain until he can no 
longer shriek, but lies foaming and grinding his teeth, 
and clinches his bony hands until the nails pierce the 
palm, — though there is no blood there to issue out, — 
trembling all the time with the shudders and chills of 
utter agony. The happiest wretch in all this ward is 
an idiot, dropsical, distorted, and moping ; all day he 
wags his head, and chatters, and laughs, and bites his 
nails ; then he will sit for hours motionless, with open 
jaw, and glassy eye fixed on vacancy. In this ward 
are huddled all the diseases of pleasure. This is the 
torture-room of the strange woman's house, and it 
excels the Inquisition. The wheel, the rack, the bed 
of knives, the roasting fire, the brazen room slowly 
heated, the slivers driven under the nails, the hot 
pincers, — what are these to the agonies of the last 
days of licentious vice ? Hundreds of rotting wretches 
would change their couch of torment in the strange 
woman's house for the gloomiest terror of the Inquisi- 
tion, and profit by the change. Nature, herself becomes 
the tormentor. Nature, long trespassed on and abused, 
at length casts down the wretch ; searches every vein, 
makes a road of every nerve for the scorching feet of 
pain to travel on, pulls at every muscle, breaks in the 
breast, builds fires in the brain, eats out the skin, and 
casts living coals of torment on the heart. What are 
hot pincers to the envenomed claws of disease ? What 
is it to be put into a pit of snakes and slimy toads, and 
feel their cold coil or piercing fang, to the creeping of a 
whole body of vipers, — where every nerve is a viper, 
and every vein a viper, and every muscle a serpent ; 
and the whole body, in all its parts, coils and twists 



152 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

upon itself in unimaginable anguish ? I tell you there 
is no inquisition so bad as that which the doctor looks 
upon. Young man, I can show you in this ward 
worse pangs than ever a savage produced at the stake, 
than ever a tyrant wrung out by engines of torment, 
than ever an inquisitor devised ! Every year, in every 
town, die wretches scalded and scorched with agony. 
Were the sum of all the pain that comes with the last 
stages of vice collected, it would rend the very heavens 
with its outcry, would shake the earth, would even 
blanch the cheek of infatuation. Ye that are loitering 
in the garden of this strange woman among her cheat- 
ing flowers, ye that are dancing in her halls in the first 
ward, come hither ; look upon her fourth ward, its 
vomited blood, its sores and fiery blotches, its prurient 
sweat, its dissolving ichor and rotten bones ! Stop, 
young man! You turn your head from this ghastly 
room ; and yet, stop, and stop soon, or thou shalt lie 
here ; mark the solemn signals of thy passage ! Thou 
hast had already enough of warnings in thy cheek, in 
thy bosom, in thy pangs of premonition. 

But, ah ! every one of you who are dancing with the 
covered paces of death in the strange woman's first 
hall, let me break your spell ; for now I shall open the 
doors of the last ward. Look ! Listen ! Witness your 
own end, unless you take quickly a warning ! 

Ward of Death. — - No longer does the incarnate 
wretch pretend to conceal her cruelty. She thrusts, — 
ay, as if they were dirt, — she shovels out the wretches. 
Some fall headlong through the rotten floor, a long 
fall to a fiery bottom. The floor trembles to deep 
thunders which roll below. Here and there jets of 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 153 

flame sprout up and give a lurid light to the murky 
hall. Some would fain escape ; and, flying across the 
treacherous floor, which man never safely passed, they 
go, through pitfalls and treacherous traps, with hideous 
outcries and astounding yells, to perdition. Fiends 
laugh. The infernal laugh, the cry of agony, the 
thunder of damnation, shake the very roof, and echo 
from wall to wall. 

that the voung might see the end of vice before 
they see the beginning ! I know that you shrink from 
this picture ; but your safety requires that you should 
look long into the Ward of Death, that fear may supply 
strength to your virtue. See the blood oozing from 
the wall, the fiery hands which pluck the wretches 
down, the light of hell gleaming through, and hear its 
roar as of a distant ocean chafed with storms. "Will 
you sprinkle the wall with your blood? will you 
feed those flames with your flesh ? will you add your 
voice to those thundering wails ? will you go down 
a prey through the fiery floor of the chamber of death ? 
Believe, then, the word of God : Her house is the way to 
hell, going down to the chambers of death ; . . . . avoid 
it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away ! 

1 have described the strange woman's house in strong 
language, and it needed it. If your taste shrinks from 
the description, so does mine. Hell, and all the ways of 
hell, when we pierce the cheating disguises and see the 
truth, are terrible and trying to behold ; and if men would 
not walk there, neither would we pursue their steps, to 
sound the alarm and gather back whom we can. 

Allow me to close by directing your attention to a 
few points of especial danger. 



154 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

I. I solemnly warn you against indulging a morbid 
imagination. In that busy and mischievous faculty 
begins the evil. Were it not for his airy imaginations, 
man might stand his own master, not overmatched 
by the worst part of himself. But ah ! these summer 
reveries, these venturesome dreams, these fairy castles, 
builded for no good purposes, — they are haunted by 
impure spirits, who will fascinate, bewitch, and corrupt 
you. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed art thou, 
most favored of God, whose thoughts are chastened, 
whose imagination will not breathe or fly in tainted 
air, and whose path hath been measured by the golden 
reed of Purity. 

May I not paint Purity as a saintly virgin in spot- 
less white, walking with open face in an air so clear 
that no vapor can stain it ? 

" Upon her lightning-brow love proudly sitting, 
Flames out in power, shines out in majesty." 

Her steps are a queen's steps. God is her father, and 
thou her brother, if thou wilt make her thine. Let 
thy heart be her dwelling; wear upon thy hand her 
ring, and on thy breast her talisman. 

II. Next to evil imaginations, I warn the young of 
evil companions. Decaying fruit corrupts the neigh- 
boring fruit. You cannot make your head a metropolis 
of base stories, the ear and tongue a highway of im- 
modest words, and yet be pure. Another, as well as 
yourself, may throw a spark on the magazine of your 
passions ; beware how your companions do it. No 
man is your friend who will corrupt you. An impure 
man is every good man's enemy, — your deadly foe ; 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 155 

and all the worse, if he hide his poisoned dagger under 
the cloak of good fellowship. Therefore, select your 
associates, assort them, winnow them, keep the grain, 
and let the wind sweep away the chaff. 

III. But I warn you, with yet more solemn em- 
phasis, against evil books and evil pictures. There 
is in every town an undercurrent which glides beneath 
our feet, unsuspected by the pure ; out of which, not- 
withstanding, our sons scoop many a goblet. Books 
are hidden in trunks, concealed in dark holes; pic- 
tures are stored in sly portfolios, or trafficked from 
hand to hand; and the handiwork of depraved art 
is seen in other forms which ought to make a harlot 
blush. 

I should think a man would loathe himself, and wake 
up from owning such things as from a horrible night- 
mare. Those who circulate them are incendiaries of 
morality ; those who make them equal the worst public 
criminals. A pure heart would shrink from these 
abominable things as from death. .France, where 
religion long ago went out smothered in licentiousness, 
has flooded the world with a species of literature red- 
olent of depravity. Upon the plea of exhibiting nature 
and man, novels are now scooped out of the very lava 
of corrupt passions. They are true to nature, but to 
nature as it exists in knaves and courtesans. Under a 
plea of humanity, we have shown up to us troops of 
harlots, to prove that they are not so bad as purists 
think; gangs of desperadoes, to show that there is 
nothing in crime inconsistent with the noblest feelings. 
We have in French and English novels of the infernal 
school humane murderers, lascivious saints, holy in- 



156 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN, 

fidels, honest robbers. These artists never seem lost, 
except when straining after a conception of religion. 
Their devotion is such as might be expected from 
thieves in the purlieus of thrice-deformed vice. Ex- 
hausted libertines are our professors of morality. They 
scrape the very sediment and muck of society to mould 
their creatures ; and their volumes are monster-galleries 
in which the inhabitants of old Sodom would have felt 
at home as connoisseurs and critics. Over loathsome 
women and unutterably vile men, huddled together in 
motley groups, and over all their monstrous deeds, — 
their lies, their plots, their crimes, their dreadful 
pleasures, their glorying conversation, — is thrown the 
checkered light of a hot imagination, until they glow 
with an infernal lustre. Novels of the French school 
and of English imitators are the common sewers of 
society, into which drain the concentrated filth of the 
worst passions, of the worst creatures, of the worst 
cities. Such novels come to us impudently pretending 
to be reformers of morals and liberalizers of religion ; 
they propose to instruct our laws, and teach a discreet 
humanity to justice. The Ten Plagues have visited 
our literature ; water is turned to blood ; frogs and lice 
creep and hop over our most familiar things, — the 
couch, the cradle, and the bread-trough ; locusts, mur- 
rain, and fire are smiting every green thing. I am 
ashamed and outraged when I think that wretches 
could be found to open these foreign seals and let out 
their plagues upon us ; that any Satanic pilgrim should 
voyage to France to dip from the dead sea of her 
abomination a baptism for our sons. It were a mercy, 
to this, to import serpents from Africa and pour them 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 157 

out on our prairies ; lions from Asia, and free them in 
our forests ; lizards and scorpions and black tarantulas 
from the Indies, and put them in our gardens. Men 
could slay these, but those offspring reptiles of the 
French mind, who can kill these ? You might as well 
draw sword on a plague, or charge a malaria with the 
bayonet. This black-lettered literature circulates in 
this town, floats in our stores, nestles in the shops, is 
fingered and read nightly, and hatches in the young 
mind broods of salacious thoughts. While the parent 
strives to infuse Christian purity into his child's heart, 
he is anticipated by most accursed messengers of evil ; 
and the heart hisses already like a nest of young and 
nimble vipers. 

IV. Once more, let me persuade you that no ex- 
amples in high places can justify imitation in low 
places. Your purity is too precious to be bartered 
because an official knave tempts by his example, I 
would that every eminent place of state were a sphere 
of light, from which should be flung down on your 
path a cheering glow to guide you on to virtue. But 
if these wandering stars, reserved, I do believe, for final 
blackness of darkness, wheel their malign spheres in 
the orbits of corruption, go not after them. God is 
greater than wicked great men ; heaven ' is higher than 
the highest places of nations ; and if God and heaven 
are not brighter to your eyes than great men in high 
places, then you must take part in their doom, when, 
erelong, God shall dash them to pieces. 

V. Let me beseech you, lastly, to guard your heart- 
purity. Never lose it ; if it be gone, you have lost from 
the casket the most precious gift of God. The first 



158 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

purity of imagination, of thought, and of feeling, if 
soiled, can be cleansed by no fuller's soap : if lost, can- 
not be found, though sought carefully with tears. If a 
harp be broken, art may repair it ; if a light be quenched, 
the flame may enkindle it ; but if a flower be crushed, 
what art can repair it ? if an odor be wafted away, 
who can collect or bring it back ? 

The heart of youth is a wide prairie. Over it hang 
the clouds of heaven to water it ; the sun throws its 
broad sheets of light upon it, to wake its life ; out of its 
bosom spring, the long season through, flowers of a 
hundred names and hues, twining together their lovely 
forms, wafting to each other a grateful odor, and nod- 
ding each to each in the summer breeze. 0, such 
would man be, did he hold that purity of heart which 
God gave him ! But you have a depraved heart. It 
is a vast continent; on it are mountain-ranges of pow- 
ers, and dark, deep streams, and pools, and morasses. If 
once the full and terrible clouds of temptation do settle 
thick and fixedly upon you, and begin to cast down 
their dreadful stores, may God save whom man can 
never ! Then the heart shall feel tides and streams of 
irresistible power marking its control, and hurrying 
fiercely down from steep to steep with growing desola- 
tion. Your only resource is to avoid the uprising of 
your giant passions. 

We are drawing near to a festival day,* by the usage 
of ages consecrated to celebrate the birth of Christ. At 
his advent, God hung out a prophet-star in the heaven ; 
guided by it, the wise men journeyed from the East and 
worshiped at his feet. O, let the star of Purity hang 

* This lecture was delivered upon Christmas eve. 



THE STRANGE WOMAN. 



159 



out to thine eye brighter than the Orient orb to the 
Magi ; let it lead thee, not to the Babe, but to His feet 
who now stands in heaven, a Prince and Saviour ! If 
thou hast sinned, one look, one touch, shall cleanse thee 
whilst thou art worshiping, and thou shalt rise up 
healed. 





VII. 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 

'KEJOICE, YOUNG MAN, IN THY YOUTH, AND LET THY HEART 
CHEER THEE IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH, AND WALK IN THE 
WAYS OF THINE HEART, AND IN THE SIGHT OF THINE EYES ; BUT 
KNOW THOU, THAT FOR ALL THESE THINGS GOD WILL BRING THEE 
INTO JUDGMENT." — Eccl. xi. 9. 

AM to venture the delicate task of repre- 
hension, always unwelcome, but peculiarly 
offensive upon topics of public popular 
amusement. I am anxious, in the begin- 
ning, to put myself right with the young. If I satisfy 
myself, Christian men, and the sober community, and 
do not satisfy them, my success will be like a physician's 
whose prescriptions please himself and the relations, 
and do good to everybody except the patient, — he 
dies. 

Allow me, first of all, to satisfy you that I am not 
meddling with matters which do not concern me. This 
is the impression which the patrons and partners of 
criminal amusements study to make upon your minds. 
They represent our* duty to be in the church, taking 
care of doctrines and of our own members. When 
more than this is attempted, when we speak a word for 
you who are not church-members, we are met with the 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 161 

surly answer, " Why do you meddle with things which 
don't concern you ? If you do not enjoy these pleas- 
ures, why do you molest those who do ? May not men 
do as they please in a free country, without being hung 
up in a gibbet of public remark ? " It is conveniently 
forgotten, I suppose, that in a free country we have the 
same right to criticise pleasure which others have to 
enjoy it. Indeed, you and I both know, young gentle- 
men, that in coffee-house circles, and in convivial feasts 
nocturnal, the Church is regarded as little better than a 
spectacled old beldam, whose impertinent eyes are spy- 
ing everybody's business but her own; and who, too 
old or too homely to be tempted herself with compul- 
sory virtue, pouts at the joyous dalliances of the young 
and gay. Eeligion is called a nun, sable with gloomy 
vestments ; and the Church a cloister, where ignorance 
is deemed innocence, and which sends out querulous 
reprehensions of a world which it knows nothing about, 
and has professedly abandoned. This is pretty, and is 
only defective in not being true. The Church is not a 
cloister, nor her members recluses, nor are our censures 
of vice intermeddling. Not to dwell in generalities, let 
us take a plain and common case. 

A strolling company offer to educate our youth, and 
to show the community the road of morality, which, 
probably, they have not seen themselves for twenty 
years. We cannot help laughing at a generosity so 
much above one's means : and when they proceed to 
hew and hack each other with rusty iron to teach our 
boys valor, and dress up practical mountebanks to 
teach theoretical virtue, if we laugh somewhat more 
they turn upon us testily: Do you mind your own busi- 



162 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ness, and leave us with ours. We do not interfere with 
your preaching r , do you let alone our acting. 

But, softly; may not religious people amuse them- 
selves with very diverting men ? I hope it is not 
bigotry to have eyes and ears. I hope it is not 
fanaticism, in the use of these excellent senses, for us 
to judge that throwing one's heels higher than their 
head, a dancing, is not exactly the way to teach virtue 
to our daughters ; and that women, whose genial warmth 
of temperament has led them into a generosity some- 
thing too great, are not the persons to teach virtue, at 
any rate. O no, we are told, Christians must not know 
that all this is very singular. Christians ought to think 
that men who are kings and dukes and philosophers 
on the stage are virtuous men, even if they gamble at 
night and are drunk all day ; and if men are so used to 
comedy that their life becomes a perpetual farce on 
morality, we have no right to laugh at this extra profes- 
sional acting. 

Are we meddlers who only seek the good of our own 
families, and of our own community where we live and 
expect to die ; or they, who wander up and down with- 
out ties of social connection, and without aim, except of 
money to be gathered off from men's vices ? 

I am anxious to put all religious men in their right 
position before you ; and in this controversy between 
them and the gay world to show you the facts upon 
both sides. A floating population, in pairs or compa- 
nies, without leave asked, blow the trumpet for all our 
youth to flock to their banners. Are they related to 
them ? Are they concerned in the welfare of our town ? 
Do they live among us ? Do they bear any part of our 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 163 

burdens ? Do they care for our substantial citizens ? 
We grade our streets, build our schools, support all our 
municipal laws, and the young men are ours, — our sons, 
our brothers, our wards, clerks, or apprentices ; they are 
living in our houses, our stores, our shops, and we are 
their guardians, and take care of them in health and 
watch them in sickness, — yet every vagabond who floats 
in hither swears and swaggers as if they were all his ; 
and when they offer to corrupt all these youth, we 
paying them round sums of money for it, and we 
get courage finally to say that we had rather not, that 
industry and honesty are better than expert knavery, — 
they turn upon us i# great indignation with, Why don't 
you mind your oivn business ? What are you meddling 
with our affairs for ? 

I will suppose a case. With much painstaking I 
have saved enough money to buy a little garden-spot. 
I put all around it a good fence ; I put the spade into it 
and mellow the soil full deep ; I go to the nursery and 
pick out choice fruit trees : I send abroad and select 
the best seeds of the rarest vegetables ; and so my gar- 
den thrives. I know every inch of it, for I have watered 
every inch with sweat. One morning I am awakened 
by a mixed sound of sawing, digging, and delving ; and, 
looking out, I see a dozen men at work in my garden. 
I run down and find one man sawing out a huge hole in 
the fence. " My dear sir, what are you doing ? " " O, 
this high fence is very troublesome to climb over ; I am 
fixing an easier way for folks to get in." Another man 
has headed down several choice trees, and is putting in 
new grafts. " Sir, what are you changing the kind for ? " 
" O, this kind don't suit me ; I like a new kind." One 



164 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

man is digging up my beans to plant cockles ; another 
is rooting up my strawberries to put in purslane ; and 
another is destroying my currants and gooseberries 
and raspberries to plant mustard and Jamestown weed. 
At last I lose all patience and cry out, * Well, gentlemen, 
this will never do. I will never tolerate this abom- 
inable imposition; you are ruining my garden." One 
of them says, "You old hypocritical bigot, do mind 
your business, and let us enjoy ourselves ! Take care of 
your house, and do not pry into our pleasures." 

Fellow-citizens, I own that no man could so invade 
your garden, but men are allowed thus to invade our 
town and destroy our children. You will let them 
evade your laws to fleece and demoralize you ; and you 
sit down under their railing, as though you w T ere the in- 
truders ! just as if the man who drives a thief out of 
his house ought to a&k the rascal's pardon for interfering 
with his little plans of pleasure and profit. 

Every parent has a right, every citizen and every 
minister has the same right, to expose traps, w T hich 
men have to set them ; the same right to prevent 
mischief, which men have to plot it ; the same right to 
attack vice, which vice has to attack virtue, — a better 
right to save our sons and brothers and companions, 
than artful men have to destroy them. 

The necessity of amusement is admitted on all hands. 
There is an appetite of the eye, of the ear, and of every 
sense, for which God has provided the material. Gayety 
of every degree, this side of puerile levity, is whole- 
some to the body, to the mind, and to the morals. 
Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments. The 
magnitude of God's works is not less admirable than its 



POPULAK AMUSEMENTS. 165 

exhilarating beauty. The rudest forms have something 
of beauty, the ruggedest strength is graced with some 
charm, the very pins and rivets and clasps of nature 
are attractive by qualities of beauty more than is neces- 
sary for mere utility. The sun could go down without 
gorgeous clouds, evening could advance without its 
evanescent brilliance, trees might have flourished with- 
out symmetry, flowers have existed without odor, and 
fruit without flavor. When I have journeyed through 
forests where ten thousand shrubs and vines exist 
without apparent use, through prairies whose undula- 
tions exhibit sheets of flowers innumerable, and abso- 
lutely dazzling the eye with their prodigality of beauty, 
— beauty not a tithe of which is ever seen by man, — 
I have said, it is plain that God is himself passionately 
fond of beauty, and the earth is his garden, as an acre 
is man's. God has made us like himself, to be pleased 
by the universal beauty of the world. He has made 
provision in nature, in society, and in the family, for 
amusement and exhilaration enough to fill the heart 
with the perpetual sunshine of delight. 

Upon this broad earth, purfled with flowers, scented 
with odors, brilliant in colors, vocal with echoing and 
re-echoing melody, I take my stand against all demor- 
alizing pleasure. Is it not enough that our Father's 
house is so full of dear delights, that we must wander 
prodigal to the swineherd for husks, and to the slough 
for drink? When the trees of God's heritage bend 
over our head and solicit our hand to pluck the golden 
fruitage, must we still go in search of the apples of 
Sodom, outside fair and inside ashes ? 

Men shall crowd to the circus to hear clowns and 



166 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

see rare feats of horsemanship ; but a bird may poise 
beneath the very sun, or, flying downward, swoop from 
the high heaven, then flit with graceful ease hither and 
thither, pouring liquid song as if it were a perennial 
fountain of sound, — no man cares for that. 

Upon the stage of life the vastest tragedies are per- 
forming in every act, — nations pitching headlong to 
their final catastrophe, others raising their youthful 
forms to begin the drama of their existence. The world 
of society is as full of exciting interest as nature is full 
of beauty. The great dramatic throng of life is hustling 
along, — the wise, the fool, the clown, the miser, the 
bereaved, the broken-hearted. Life mingles before us 
smiles and tears, sighs and laughter, joy and gloom, as 
the spring mingles the winter storm and summer sun- 
shine. To this vast theater which God hath builded, 
where stranger plays are seen than ever author writ, 
man seldom cares to come. When God dramatizes, 
when nations act, or all the human kind conspire to 
educe the vast catastrophe, men sleep and snore, and 
let the busy scene go on, unlooked, unthought upon ; 
and turn from all its varied magnificence to hunt out 
some candle-lighted hole and gaze at drunken ranters, 
or cry at the piteous virtue of harlots in distress. It 
is my object, then, not to withdraw the young from 
pleasure, but from unworthy pleasures ; not to lessen 
their enjoyments, but to increase them by rejecting the 
counterfeit and the vile. 

Of gambling I have already sufficiently spoken. Of 
cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and pugilistic contests I 
need to speak but little. These are the desperate ex- 
citements of debauched men ; but no man becomes 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 167 

desperately criminal until he lias been genteelly crim- 
inal. No one spreads his sail upon such waters at 
first ; these brutal amusements are but the gulf into 
which flow all the streams of criminal pleasures, and 
they who embark upon the river are sailing toward 
the gulf. "Wretches who have waded all the depths of 
iniquity and burned every passion to the socket, find 
in rage and blows and blood the only stimulus of which 
they are susceptible. You are training yourselves to 
be just such wretches, if you are exhausting your pas- 
sions in illicit indulgences. 

As it is impossible to analyze separately each vicious 
amusement proffered to the young, I am compelled to 
select two, each the representative of a clan. Thus, 
the reasonings applied to the amusement of racing 
apply equally well to all violent amusements which 
congregate indolent and dissipated men by ministering 
intense excitement. The reasonings applied to the 
theater, with some modifications, apply to the circus, 
to promiscuous balls, to night-reveling, bacchanalian 
feasts, and to other similar indulgences. 

Many wdio are not in danger may incline to turn 
from these pages ; they live in rural districts,, in vil- 
lages or towns, and are out of the reach of jockeys 
and actors and gamblers. This is the very reason why 
you should read. We are such a migratory, restless 
people, that our home is usually everywhere but at 
home ; and almost every young man makes annual or 
biennial visits to famous cities, conveying produce to 
market, or purchasing wares and goods. It is at such 
times that the young are in extreme danger, for they 
are particularly anxious, at such times, to appear at 



168 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

their full age. A young man is ashamed, in a great 
hotel, to seem raw and not to know the mysteries of 
the bar and of the town. They put on a very remark- 
able air, which is meant for ease ; they affect profusion 
of expense ; they think it meet for a gentleman to know 
all that certain other city gentlemen seem proud of 
knowing. As sober citizens are not found lounging at 
hotels, and the gentlemanly part of the traveling com- 
munity are usually retiring, modest, and unnoticeable, 
the young are left to come in contact chiefly with a 
very flash class of men who swarm about city restau- 
rants and hotels, swollen clerks, crack sportsmen, epi- 
cures, and rich, green youth, seasoning. These are the 
most numerous class which engage the attention of the 
young. They bustle in the sitting-room or crowd the 
bar, assume the chief seats at the table, and play the 
petty lord in a manner so brilliant as altogether to 
dazzle our poor country boy, who mourns at his 
deficient education, at the poverty of his rural oaths, 
and the meagerness of those illicit pleasures which he 
formerly nibbled at with mouse-like stealth ; and he 
sighs for these riper accomplishments. Besides, it is 
well known that large commercial establishments have, 
residing at such hotels, well-appointed clerks to draw 
customers to their counter. It is their business to 
make your acquaintance, to fish out the probable con- 
dition of your funds, to sweeten your temper with 
delicate tidbits of pleasure ; to take you to the theater, 
and a little farther on, if need be; to draw you in to a 
generous supper, and initiate you to the high life of 
men whose whole life is only the varied phases of lust, 
gastronomical or amorous. 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 169 

Besides these, there lurk in such places lynx-eyed 
procurers ; men who have an interest in your appetites, 
who look upon a young man with some money just as 
a butcher looks upon a bullock, — a thing of so many 
pounds avoirdupois, of so much beef, so much tallow, 
and a hide. If you have nothing, they will have 
nothing to do with you; if you have means, they 
undertake to supply you with the disposition to use 
them. They know the city, they know its haunts, 
they know its secret doors, its blind passages, its spicy 
pleasures, its racy vices, clear down to the mud-slime 
of the very bottom. 

Meanwhile, the accustomed restraint of home cast 
off, the youth feels that he is unknown, and may do 
what he chooses, unexposed. There is, moreover, an 
intense curiosity to see many things of w T hich he has 
long ago heard and wondered; and it is the very art 
and education of vice to make itself attractive. It 
comes with garlands of roses about its brow, with nectar 
in its goblet, and love upon its tongue. 

If you have, beforehand, no settled opinions as to 
what is right and what is wrong ; if your judgment 
is now, for the first time, to be formed upon the 
propriety of your actions; if you are not controlled 
by settled principles, there is scarcely a chance for your 
purity. 

For this purpose, then, I desire to discuss these 
things, that you may settle your opinions and princi- 
ples before temptation assails you. As a ship is built 
upon the dry shore, which afterwards is to dare the 
storm and brave the sea, so would I build you stanch 
and strong ere you be launched abroad upon life. 



170 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

I. Eacing. — This amusement justifies its existence 
by the plea of utility. We will examine it upon 
its own ground. "Who are the patrons of the turf ? — 
farmers, laborers, men who are practically the most 
interested in the improvement of stock ? The unerr- 
ing instinct of self-interest would lead these men to 
patronize the course if its utility were real. It is 
notorious that these are not the patrons of racing. It 
is sustained by two classes of men, gambling jockeys 
and jaded rich men. In England, and in our own 
country, where the turf sports are freshest, they owe 
their existence entirely to the extraordinary excitement 
which they afford to dissipation or to cloyed appetites. 
For those industrial purposes for which the horse is 
chiefly valuable, for roadsters, hacks, and cart-horses, 
what do the patrons of the turf care ? Their whole 
anxiety is centered upon winning cups and stakes ; and 
that is incomparably the best blood which will run 
the longest space in the shortest time. The points re- 
quired for this are not, and never will be, the points for 
substantial service. And it is notorious that racing 
in England deteriorated the stock in such important 
respects, that the light cavalry and dragoon service 
suffered severely, until dependence upon turf stables 
was abandoned. New England, where racing is un- 
known, is to this day the place where the horse exists 
in the finest qualities ; and, for all economical purposes, 
Virginia and Kentucky must yield to New England. 
Except for the sole purpose of racing, an Eastern horse 
brings a higher price than any other. 

The other class of patrons who sustain a course are 
mere gambling jockeys. As crows to a cornfield or 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 171 

vultures to their prey, as flies to summer-sweet, so to 
the annual races flow the whole tribe of gamesters and 
pleasure-lovers. It is the Jerusalem of wicked men ; 
and thither the tribes go up, like Israel of old, but for a 
far different sacrifice. No form of social abomination is 
unknown or unpracticed; and if all the good that is* 
claimed, and a hundred times more, were done to 
horses, it would be a dear bargain. To ruin men for 
the sake of improving horses, to sacrifice conscience 
and purity for the sake of good bones and muscles in a 
beast, — this is paying a little too much for good brutes. 
Indeed, the shameless immorality, the perpetual and 
growing dishonesty, the almost immeasurable secret 
villainy of gentlemen of the turf, has alarmed and dis- 
gusted many stalwart racers, who, having no objection 
to some evil, are appalled at the very ocean of depravity 
which rolls before them. I extract the words of one of 
the leading sportsmen of England : " How many fine 
domains have been shared among these hosts of rapacious 
sharks during the last two hundred years ; and, tinless 
the system be altered, how many more are doomed to fall 
into the same gidf ! For, ive lament to say, the evil has 
increased ; all heretofore has been ' TAETS AND CHEESE- 
CAKES ' to the villainous proceedings of the last twenty 
years on the English turf" 

I will drop this barbarous amusement with a few 
questions. 

What have you, young men, to do with the turf, ad- 
mitting it to be what it claims, a school for horses ? Are 
you particularly interested in that branch of learning ? 

Is it safe to accustom yourselves to such tremendous 
excitement as that of racing ? 



172 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Is the invariable company of such places of a kind 
which you ought to be found in? Will races make 
you more moral, more industrious, more careful, eco- 
nomical, trustworthy ? 

You who have attended them, what advice would you 
give a young man — a younger brother, for instance — 
who should seriously ask if he had better attend ? 

I digress to say one word to women. When a course 
was opened at Cincinnati, ladies would not attend it ; 
when one was opened here, ladies would not attend it. 
For very good reasons, — they were ladies. If it be 
said that they attend the races at the South and in 
England, I reply, that they do a great many other 
things which you would not choose to do. 

Eoman ladies could see hundreds of gladiators stab 
and hack each other ; could you ? Spanish ladies can 
see savage bull-fights ; would you ? It is possible for 
a modest woman to countenance very questionable 
practices, where the customs of society and the univer- 
sal public opinion approve them. But no woman can 
set herself against public opinion, in favor of an im- 
moral sport, without being herself immoral; for, if 
worse be wanting, it is immorality enough for a woman 
to put herself where her reputation will lose its sus- 
piciousless luster. 

II. The Theatee. — Desperate efforts are made, 
year by year, to resuscitate this expiring evil. Its claims 
are put forth with vehemence. Let us examine them. 

The drama cultivates the taste. Let the appeal be to 
facts. Let the roll of English literature be explored, — 
our poets, romancers, historians, essayists, critics, and 
divines, — and for what part of their memorable writ- 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 173 

ings are we indebted to the drama ? If we except one 
period of our literature, the claim is wholly groundless ; 
and at this day the truth is so opposite to the claim 
that extravagance, affectation, and rant are proverbially 
denominated theatrical. If agriculture should attempt 
to supersede the admirable implements of husbandry 
now in use by the primitive plow or sharpened 
sticks, it would not be more absurd than to advocate 
that clumsy machine of literature, the theater, by the 
side of the popular lecture, the pulpit, and the press. 
It is not congenial to our age or necessities. Its day is 
gone by ; it is in its dotage, as might be suspected from 
the weakness of the garrulous apologies which it puts 
forth. 

It is a school of morals. Yes, doubtless ! So the 
guillotine is defended on the plea of humanity. In- 
quisitors declare their racks and torture-beds to be the 
instruments of love, affectionately admonishing the 
fallen of the error of their ways. The slave-trade has 
been defended on the plea of humanity, and slavery is 
now defended for its mercies. Were it necessary for 
any school or party, doubtless we should hear arguments 
to prove the Devil's grace, and the utility of his agency 
among men. 

But let me settle these impudent pretensions to 
theater virtue by the home thrust of a few plain 
questions. 

Will any of you who have been to theaters please to 
tell me whether virtue ever received important acces- 
sions from the gallery of theaters ? 

Will you tell me whether the pit is a place where an 
ordinarily modest man would love to seat his children ? 



174 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Was ever a theater known where a prayer at the 
opening and a prayer at the close would not be tor- 
mentingly discordant ? 

How does it happen that in a school for morals the 
teachers never learn their own lessons ? 

Would you allow a son or daughter to associate alone 
with actors or actresses ? 

Do these men who promote virtue so zealously, when 
acting, take any part in public moral enterprises when 
their stage dresses are off ? 

Which would surprise you most, to see actors steadily 
at church or to see Christians steadily at a theater ? 
Would not both strike you as singular incongruities ? 

What is the reason that loose and abandoned men 
abhor religion in a church and love it so much in a 
theater ? 

Since the theater is the handmaid of virtue, w r hy are 
drinking-houses so necessary to its neighborhood, yet so 
offensive to churches ? The trustees of the Tremont 
Theater, in Boston, publicly protested against an order 
of council forbidding liquor to be. sold on the premises, 
on the ground that it was impossible to support the 
theater without it. 

I am told that Christians do attend the theaters. 
Then I will tell them the story of the Ancients. A 
holy monk reproached the Devil for stealing a young 
man who was found at the theater. He promptly 
replied, " I found him on my premises, and took him." 

But, it is said, if Christians would take theaters in 
hand, instead of abandoning them to loose men, they 
might become the handmaids of religion. 

The Church has had an intimate acquaintance with 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 175 

the theater for eighteen hundred years. During that 
period every available agent for the diffusion of moral- 
ity has been earnestly tried. The drama has been tried. 
The result is that familiarity has bred contempt and 
abhorrence. If, after so long and thorough an acquaint- 
ance, the Church stands the mortal enemy of theaters, 
the testimony is conclusive. It is the evidence of gen- 
erations speaking by the most sober, thinking, and 
honest men. Let not this vagabond prostitute pollute 
any longer the precincts of the Church with impudent 
proposals of alliance. "When the Church needs an 
alliance, it will not look for it in the kennel. Ah, 
what a blissful scene would that be, the Church and 
Theater imparadised in each other's arms ! What a 
sweet conjunction would be made, could we build our 
churches so as to preach in the morning and play in 
them by night. And how melting it would be, beyond 
the love of David and Jonathan, to see minister and 
actor in loving embrace ; one slaying Satan by direct 
thrusts of plain preaching, and the other sucking his 
very life out by the enchantment of the drama ! To 
this millennial scene of church and theater I only sug- 
gest a single improvement : that the vestry be enlarged 
to a ring for a circus, when not wanted for prayer-meet- 
ings ; that the Sabbath-school room should be furnished 
with card-tables, and useful texts of Scripture might be 
printed on the cards, for the pious meditations of gam- 
blers during the intervals of play and worship. 

But if these places are put down, men will go to ivorse 
ones. Where will they find worse ones ? Are those 
who go to the theater, the circus, the race-course, the 
men who abstain from worse places ? It is notorious 



176 LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN. 

that the crowd of theater-goers are vomited up from 
these worse places. It is notorious that the theater is 
the door to all the sinks of iniquity. It is through this 
infamous place that the young learn to love those 
vicious associates and practices to which else they 
would have been strangers. Half the victims of the 
gallows and of the penitentiary will tell you that these 
schools for morals were to them the gate of debauchery, 
the porch of pollution, the vestibule of the very house 
of death. 

The drama makes one acquainted with human life 
and with nature. It is too true. There is scarcely an 
evil incident to human life which may not be fully 
learned at the theater. Here flourishes every variety 
of wit, ridicule of sacred things, burlesques of religion, 
and licentious douhle-entendres. Nowhere can so much 
of this lore be learned, in so short a time, as at the 
theater. There one learns how pleasant a thing is 
vice ; amours are consecrated, license is prospered, and 
the young come away alive to the glorious liberty of 
conquest and lust. But the stage is not the only place 
about the drama where human nature is learned. In 
the boxes the young may make the acquaintance of those 
who abhor home and domestic quiet; of those who 
glory in profusion and obtrusive display ; of those who 
expend all, and more than their earnings, upon gay 
clothes and jewelry ; of those who think it no harm to 
borrow their money without leave from their employer's 
till; of those who despise vulgar appetite, but affect 
polished and genteel licentiousness. Or he may go to 
the pit, and learn the whole round of villain life from 
masters in the art. He may sit down among thieves, 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 177 

blood-loving scoundrels, swindlers, broken-down men 
of pleasure, — the coarse, the vulgar, the debauched, 
the inhuman, the infernal. Or, if still more of human 
nature is wished, he can learn yet more ; for the theater 
epitomizes every degree of corruption. Let the vir- 
tuous young scholar go to the gallery, and learn there 
decency, modesty, and refinement, among the quarrel- 
ing, drunken, ogling, mincing, brutal women of the 
brothel. Ah, there is no place like the theater for 
learning human nature ! A young man can gather up 
more experimental knowledge here in a week than else- 
where in half a year. But I wonder that the drama 
should ever confess the fact ; and, yet more, that it 
should lustily plead in self-defence that theaters teach 
men so much of human nature ! Here are brilliant 
bars, to teach the young to drink ; here are gay com- 
panions, to undo in half an hour the scruples formed 
by an education of years ; here are pimps of pleasure, 
to delude the brain with bewildering sophisms of 
license; here is pleasure, all flushed in its gayest, 
boldest, most fascinating forms ; and few there be who 
can resist its wiles, and fewer yet who can yield to 
them and escape ruin. If you would pervert the taste, 
go to the theater. If you would imbibe false views, go 
to the theater. If you would efface as speedily as pos- 
sible all qualms of conscience, go to the theater. If 
you would put yourself irreconcilably against the spirit 
of virtue and religion, go to the theater. If you would 
be infected with each particular vice in the catalogue 
of depravity, go to the theater. Let parents who wish 
to make their children weary of home and quiet do- 
mestic enjoyments, take them to the theater. If it be 



178 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

desirable for the young to loathe industry and didactic 
reading, and burn for fierce excitements, and seek them 
by stealth or through pilferings, if need be, then send 
them to the theater. It is notorious that the bill of 
fare at these temples of pleasure is made up to the 
taste of the lower appetites ; that low comedy, and 
lower farce, running into absolute obscenity, are the 
only means of filling a house. Theaters which should 
exhibit nothing but the classic drama would exhibit it 
to empty seats. They must be corrupt to live; and 
those who attend them will be corrupted. 

Let me turn your attention to several reasons which 
should incline every young man to forswear such 
criminal amusements. 

I. The first reason is, their waste of time. I do not 
mean that they waste only the time consumed while 
you are within them ; but they make you waste your 
time afterwards. You will go once, and wish to go 
again ; you will go twice, and seek it a third time ; you 
will go a third time, a fourth ; and whenever the bill 
flames you will be seized with a restlessness and crav- 
ing to go, until the appetite will become a pamrni. 
You will then waste your nights ; your mornings being 
heavy, melancholy, and stupid, you will waste them. 
Your day will next be confused and crowded, your 
duties poorly executed or deferred; habits of arrant 
shiftlessness will ensue, and day by day industry will 
grow tiresome, and leisure sweeter, until you are a 
waster of time, an idle man ; and if not a rogue, you 
will be a fortunate exception. 

II. You ought not to countenance these things, 
because they will waste your money. Young gentlemen, 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 179 

squandering is as shameful as hoarding. A fool can 
throw away, and a fool can lock up ; but it is a wise 
man who, neither parsimonious nor profuse, steers the 
middle course of generous economy and frugal lib- 
erality. A young man at first thinks that all he 
spends at such places is the ticket price of the the- 
ater, or the small bet on the races ; and this he knows 
is not much. But this is certainly not the whole bill, 
nor half. 

First, you pay your entrance. But there are a 
thousand petty luxuries which one must not neglect, 
or custom will call him niggard. You must buy your 
cigars and your friend's. You must buy your juleps, 
and treat in your turn. You must occasionally wait 
on your lady, and she must be comforted with divers 
confections. You cannot go to such places in home- 
ly working dress; new and costlier clothes must be 
bought. All your companions have jewelry ; you will 
want a ring, or a seal, or a golden watch, or an ebony 
cane, a silver 'toothpick, or quizziug-glass. Thus, item 
presses upon item, and in the year a long bill runs up 
of money spent for little trifles. 

But if all this money could buy you off from the yet 
worse effects, the bargain would not be so dear. But 
compare, if you please, this mode of expenditure with 
the principle of your ordinary expense. In all ordinary 
and business transactions you get an equivalent for your 
money, either food for support, or clothes for comfort, 
or permanent property. But when a young man has 
spent one or two hundred dollars for the theater, cir- 
cus, races, balls, and reveling, what has he to show 
for it at the end of the year? Nothing at all good, 



180 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

and much that is bad. You sink your money as really 
as if you threw it into the sea ; and you do it in such 
a way that you form habits of careless expense. You 
lose all sense of the value of property ; and when a 
man sees no value in property, he will see no neces- 
sity for labor ; and when he is lazy and careless of 
property; both, he will be dishonest. Thus, a habit 
which seems innocent — the habit of trifling with 
property — often degenerates to worthlessness, indo- 
lence, and roguery. 

III. Such pleasures are incompatible with your ordi- 
nary pursuits. 

The very way to ruin an honest business is to be 
ashamed of it, or to put alongside of it something which 
a man loves better. There can be no industrial calling 
so exciting as the theater, the circus, and the races. 
If you wish to make your real business very stupid 
and hateful, visit such places. After the glare of the 
theater has dazzled your eyes, your blacksmith-shop 
will look smuttier than ever it did before. After you 
have seen stalwart heroes pounding their antagonists, 
you will find it a dull business to pound iron ; and a 
valiant apprentice who has seen such gracious glances 
of love and such rapturous kissing of hands, will hate 
to dirty his heroic fingers with mortar, or by rolling 
felt on the hatter's board. If a man had a homely, but 
most useful wife, — patient, kind, intelligent, hopeful 
in sorrow, and cheerful in prosperity, but yet very 
plain, very homely, — would he be wise to bring under 
his roof a fascinating and artful beauty ? Would the 
contrast, and her wiles, make him love his own wife 
better? Young gentlemen, your wives are your ii^ 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 181 

dustrial callings. These raree-shows are artful jades, 
dressed up on purpose to purloin your affections. Let 
no man be led to commit adultery with a theater, 
against the rights of his own trade. 

IV. Another reason why you should let alone these 
deceitful pleasures is, that they will engage you in bad 
company. To the theater, the ball, the circus, the 
race-course, the gaming-table, resort all the idle, the 
dissipated, the rogues, the licentious, the epicures, 
the gluttons, the artful jades, the immodest prudes, 
the joyous, the worthless, the refuse. When you go, 
you will not, at first, take introduction to them all, but 
to those nearest like yourself ; by them the way will be 
opened to others. And a very great evil has befallen 
a young man, when wicked men feel that they have a 
right to his acquaintance. When I see a gambler slap- 
ping a young mechanic on the back, or a lecherous 
scoundrel suffusing a young man's cheek by a story at 
which, despite his blushes, he yet laughs, I know the 
youth has been guilty of criminal indiscretion, or these 
men could not approach him thus. That is a brave 
and strong heart that can stand up pure in a company 
of artful wretches. When wicked men mean to seduce 
a young man, so tremendous are the odds in favor of 
practiced experience against innocence, that there is 
not one chance in a thousand, if the young man lets 
them approach him. Let every young man remember 
that he carries, by nature, a breast of passions just such 
as bad men have. With youth they slumber; but 
temptation can wake them, bad men can influence 
them ; they know the road, they know how to serenade 

the heart, how to raise the sash, and elope with each 
9 



182 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

passion. There is but one resource for innocence 
among men or women ; and that is, an embargo upon 
all commerce of bad men. Bar the window, — bolt 
the door: nor answer their strain, if they charm 
never so wisely. In no other way can you be safe. 
So well am I assured of the power of bad men to 
seduce the erring purity of man, that I pronounce it 
next to impossible for man or woman to escape, if they 
permit had men to approach and dally with them. O, 
there is more than magic in temptation, when it beams 
down upon the heart of man like the sun upon a 
morass ! At the noontide hour of purity the mists 
shall rise and wreathe a thousand fantastic forms of 
delusion ; and a sudden freak of passion, a single gleam 
of the imagination, one sudden rush of the capricious 
heart, and the resistance of years may be prostrated in 
a moment, the heart entered by the besieging enemy, 
its rooms sought out, and every lovely affection rudely 
seized by the invader's lust, and given to ravishment 
and to ruin. 

Now, if these morality teachers could guarantee us 
against all evil from their doings, we might pay their 
support, and think it a cheap bargain. The direct and 
necessary effect of their pursuit, however, is to demor- 
alize men. 

Those who defend theaters would scorn to admit 
actors into their society. It is within the knowledge 
of all, that men who thus cater for public pleasure are 
usually excluded from respectable society. The general 
fact is not altered, by the exceptions, and honorable ex- 
ceptions there are. But where there is one Siddons and 
one Ellen Tree and one Fanny Kemble, how many hun- 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 183 

clred actresses are there who dare not venture within 
modest society ? Where there is one Garrick and 
Sheridan, how many thousand licentious wretches are 
there whose acting is but a means of sensual indulgence ? 
In the support of gamblers, circus-riders, actors, and 
racing-jockeys, a Christian and industrious people are 
guilty of supporting thousands of mere mischief-mak- 
ers, men whose very heart is diseased, and whose sores 
exhale contagion to all around them. We pay moral 
assassins to stab the purity of our children. We warn 
our sons of temptation, and yet plant the seeds which 
shall bristle with all the spikes and thorns of the worst 
temptation. If to this strong language you answer 
that these men are generous and jovial, that their very- 
business is to please, that they do not mean to do harm, 
I reply, that I do not charge them with trying to pro- 
duce immorality, but with pursuing a course which 
produces it, whether they try or not. An evil example 
does harm by its own liberty, without asking leave. 
Moral disease, like the plague, is contagious, whether 
the -patient wishes it or not. A vile man infects his 
children in spite of himself. Criminals make criminals, 
just as taint makes taint, disease makes disease, plagues 
make plagues. Those who run the gay round of pleas- 
ure cannot help dazzling the young, confounding their 
habits, and perverting their morals ; it is the very 
nature of their employment. 

These demoralizing professions could not be sus- 
tained but by the patronage of moral men. Where do 
the clerks, the apprentices, the dissipated, get their 
money which buys an entrance ? From whom is that 
money drained, always, in every land which supports 



184 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

vice ? Unquestionably from the good, the laborious, 
the careful. The skill, the enterprise, the labor, the 
good morals of every nation are always taxed for the 
expenses of vice. Jails are built out of honest men's 
earnings. Courts are supported from peaceful men's 
property. Penitentiaries are built by the toil of virtue. 
Crime never pays its own way. Vice has no hands to 
work, no head to calculate. Its whole faculty is to 
corrupt and to waste, and good men, directly or in- 
directly, foot the bill. 

At this time, when we are waiting in vain for the 
return of that bread which we wastefully cast upon the 
waters ; when, all over the sea, men are fishing up the 
wrecks of those argosies and full-freighted fortunes 
which foundered in the sad storm of recent times, — 
some question might be asked about the economy of 
vice ; the economy of paying for our sons' idleness ; 
the economy of maintaining a whole lazy profession of 
gamblers, racers, actresses, and actors, — human, equine, 
and belluine, — whose errand is mischief and luxury 
and license and giggling folly. It ought to be asked of 
men who groan at a tax to pay their honest foreign 
debts, whether they can be taxed to pay the bills of 
mountebanks ? * 

* We cannot pay for honest loans, but we can pay Elssler hundreds 
of thousands for being an airy sylph! America can pay vagabond fid- 
dlers, dancers, fashionable actors, dancing-horses, and boxing-men! 
Heaven forbid that these should want ! But to pay honest debts, — 
indeed, indeed, we have honorable scruples about that ! 

Let our foreign creditors dismiss their fears and forgive us the com- 
mercial debt ; write no more drowsy letters about public faith ; let them 
write spicy comedies, and send over fiddlers and dancers and actors 
and singers, — they will soon collect -the debt and keep us good- 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 185 

It is astonishing how little the influence of those 
professions has been considered, which exert themselves 
mainly to delight the sensual feelings of men. That 
whole race of men whose camp is the theater, the circus, 
the turf, or the gaming-table, is a race whose instinct is 
destruction, who live to corrupt, and live off of the cor- 
ruption which they make. For their support we sacri- 
fice annual hecatombs of youthful victims. Even sober 
Christian men look smilingly upon the gairish outside 
of these train-bands of destruction ; and while we see 
the results to be, uniformly, dissipation, idleness, dis- 
honesty, vice, and crime, still they lull us with the 
lying lyric of classic drama and human life, morality, 
poetry, and divine comedy. 

natured ! After every extenuation, — hard times, deficient currency 
want of market, etc, , — there is a deeper reason than these at the bottom 
of our inert indebtedness. Living among the body of the people and 
having nothing to lose or gain by my opinions, I must say plainly thai: 
the community are not sensitive to the disgrace of flagrant public 
bankruptcy ; they do not seem to care whether their public debt be 
paid or not. I perceive no enthusiasm on that subject : it is not a 
topic for either party, nor of anxious private conversation. A pro- 
found indebtedness, ruinous to our credit and to our morals, is allowed 
to lie at the very bottom of the abyss of dishonest indifference. 

Men love to be taxed for their lusts ; there is an open exchequer for 
licentiousness and for giddy pleasure. We grow suddenly saving, 
when benevolence asks alms or justice duns for debts ; we dole a pit- 
tance to suppliant creditors to be rid of their clamor. But let the 
divine Fanny, with evolutions extremely efficacious upon the feelings, 
fire the enthusiasm of a whole theater of men, whose applauses rise, as 
she does ; let this courageous dancer, almost literally true to nature, 
display her adventurous feats before a thousand men, and the very 
miser will turn spendthrift ; the land which will not pay its honest 
creditors will enrich a strolling danseuse and rain down upon the stage 
a stream of golden boxes or golden coin, wreaths and rosy billet- 
doux. 



186 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Disguise it as you will, these men of pleasure are, the 
world over, corrupters of youth. Upon no principle 
of kindness can we tolerate them; no excuse is bold 
enough; we can take bail from none of their weak- 
nesses, — it is not safe to have them abroad even upon 
excessive bail. You might as well take bail of lions, 
and allow scorpions to breed in our streets for a suit- 
able license"; or, for a tax, indulge assassins. Men 
whose life is given to evil pleasures are, to ordinary 
criminals, what a universal pestilence is to a local 
disease. They fill the air, pervade the community, and 
bring around every youth an atmosphere of death. Cor- 
rupters of youth have no mitigation of their baseness. 
Their generosity avails nothing, their knowledge noth- 
ing, their varied accomplishments nothing. These are 
only so many facilities for greater evil. Is a serpent 
less deadly because his burnished scales shine ? Shall 
a dove praise and court the vulture because he has such 
glossy plumage ? The more accomplishments a bad 
man has the more dangerous is he ; they are the gar- 
lands which cover up the knife with which he will 
stab. There is no such thing as good corrupters. You 
might as well talk of a mild and pleasant murder, a 
very lenient assassination, a grateful stench, or a pious 
devil. We denounce them, for it is our nature to 
loathe perfidious corruption. We have no compunc- 
tion to withhold us. We mourn over a torn and bleed- 
ing lamb ; but who mourns the wolf which rent it ? 
We weep for despoiled innocence ; but who sheds a tear 
for the savage fiend who plucks away the flower of 
virtue ? We shudder and pray for the shrieking victim 
of the Inquisition ; but who would spare the hoary in- 



POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 187 

quisitor, before whose shriveled form the piteous maid 
implores relief in vain ? Even thus we palliate the 
sins of generous youth, and their downfall is our sor- 
row; but for their destroyers, for the corrupters of 
youth who practice the infernal chemistry of ruin and 
dissolve the young heart in vice, we have neither tears 
nor pleas nor patience. We lift our heart to Him who 
beareth the iron rod of vengeance and pray for the ap- 
pointed time of judgment. Ye miscreants ! think ye 
that ye are growing tall and walking safely because 
God hath forgotten ? The bolt shall yet smite you ! 
you shall be heard as the falling of an oak in the silent 
forest, the vaster its growth the more terrible its resound- 
ing downfall. O thou corrupter of youth ! I would 
not take thy death for all the pleasure of thy guilty 
life a thousand-fold. Thou shalt draw near to the 
shadow of death. To the Christian these shades are the 
golden haze which heaven's light makes when it meets 
the earth and mingles with its shadows. But to thee 
these shall be shadows full of phantom shapes. Im- 
ages of terror in the future shall dimly rise and beckon, 
the ghastly deeds of the past shall stretch out their 
skinny hands to push thee forward. Thou shalt not 
die unattended. Despair shall mock thee. Agony 
shall tender to thy parched lips her fiery cup. Ee- 
morse shall feel for thy heart, and rend it open. Good 
men shall breathe freer at thy death, and utter thanks- 
giving when thou art gone. Men shall place thy grave- 
stone as a monument and testimony that a plague is 
stayed ; no tear shall wet it, no mourner linger there. 
And, as borne on the blast thy guilty spirit whistles 
toward the gate of hell, the hideous shrieks of those 



188 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

whom thy hand hath destroyed shall pierce thee, — 
hell's first welcome. In the bosom of that everlasting 
storm which rains perpetual misery in hell shalt thou, 
corrupter of youth, be forever hidden from our view ; 
and may God wipe out the very thoughts of thee from 
our memory! 




VIII. 

PRACTICAL HINTS* 

"Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, 
abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul ; 
haying your conversation honest among the gentiles ; that, 
whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may 
by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify 
God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every 
ordinance of man for the lord's sake ; whether it be to 
the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them 
that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, 
and for the praise of them that do well. for so is the 
will of god, that with well-doing ye may put to silence 
the ignorance of foolish men ; as free, and not using your 
liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the ser- 
VANTS of God. " — 1 Pet. ii. 11 - 16. 




HIS passage shows the large-mindedness 
which the Apostle would put into the con- 
duct of human affairs. The ordinary pro- 
cesses of human life, which so often are 
made vulgar and mean by pride and by selfishness, and 
which oftentimes seem to us to be inevitably joined to 
all that is unmanly, were looked upon by him as noble 
and ennobling, worthy of the best care and thought. It 
is peculiar to the New Testament that it underlays 
human life with motives that dignify it in all its parts. 

* Delivered Sunday evening, May 8, 1859. 



190 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

I desire to refresh the minds of the young, more par- 
ticularly, with some thoughts respecting their various 
relations in life, and with some plain practical sugges- 
tions and instructions with reference to the best method 
of fulfilling their duties in those relations. 

The young are those to whom we look for future 
strength and for future good ; and the longer we live 
the more anxious we become that they who are to be 
the fresh recruits should be morally of right stature. 
Around them are peculiar temptations and trials, witch- 
ing, cunning, insidious, and forceful ; and we are obliged 
to see thousands falling by the way whose fall seems 
needless. They, like ourselves, are to have but one 
chance in life. We that are somewhat advanced in 
years, seeing how many perils there are around about 
that one chance, feel an earnest desire that every advan- 
tage should be given to those who are coming on to fill 
our places. We can live but once, and life is usually 
molded and takes its shape very early. 

I propose, therefore, on this occasion, to consider the 
relations which the young of both sexes sustain to their 
parents, their employers, to themselves, and to the com- 
munity or country in which they live. 

No young person should consider it an advantage to 
get rid of parental supervision and care. Though to 
the child there comes a period when it irks the ear 
to be perpetually taught and restrained, yet there is 
nothing in after life that can take the place of father 
and mother to him. There is no other institution like 
the family ; there is no other love like parental love ; 
there is no other friendship like the friendship of father 
and of mother. While the boy and girl are yet sprout- 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 191 

ing into manhood and womanhood, they may be a little 
impatient under restraint ; yet every after-year of in- 
dependence will teach the young man and maiden that 
there were no advantages like those which their parents 
gave them. Young man, there are no persons that will 
tell you the truth so faithfully, there are no persons 
that know your faults so well, there are none so dis- 
interestedly considerate for your well-being, as father 
and mother. Besides, no newspaper, no pulpit, no tri- 
bunal of any kind, ever discusses or touches these ques- 
tions that belong to the familiar converse of the family. 
We cannot approach, in these arms-length discourses, to 
that familiar wisdom which brings information home to 
the very spot where it is needed in individual charac- 
ter, as father and mother do at the nightly fireside. 

Do not be too anxious, therefore, to break off the 
connection which exists between you and your parents. 
Eemember, that as the law governing that social band 
makes it inevitable that you must inherit its honor or 
disgrace, so it acts retrospectively, and you are to cast 
back a part of your well-doing or ill-doing upon it. You 
are not free from your father and mother yet, nor are 
your obligations to them ended. As long as you live 
you will owe a child's duty to your parents. It is an 
obligatory duty as long as you are a minor ; it becomes 
a spontaneous offering of honor and affection when you 
pass to your majority. 

It is one of the worst signs that can mark young men 
and maidens that they easily forget the home of their 
father and mother; and you that have left country 
homes and come down to this great thoroughfare, so far 
from laying aside the associations of home, and being 



192 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ashamed of its counsels and manners, be yet more assid- 
uous and careful than you ever were before to treasure 
them up. Hold fast to home influences and remem- 
brances ; and recollect that he who tries to shame you 
out of a father's and a mother's fear, and out of obedi- 
ence to them, tries to steal the most precious treasure 
you have. He that is trying to destroy the influence of 
your parents upon you is trying to take from you the 
most faithful love you ever knew. You shall lie down 
in the grave when you shall have traversed forty or 
eighty years of life, without having found another 
friend who has borne as much for you, or done as much 
for you, as your father or your mother. There is no 
need, I trust, that I should say more upon this point. 

I pass next to consider some of your duties to your 
employers ; and this branch of our subject includes a 
wide range. 

I ask you to consider, in the first place, your rela- 
tions to your employers from the highest, and, therefore, 
from a Christian point of view. Do not vulgarize your 
secular relations, but make a matter of religion of them. 
At least, look at them in the highest moods and feelings 
of religious honor. It will make all the difference in 
the world whether you look at your duties to your em- 
ployers from a low and selfish point of view, or from a 
high-minded and generous point of view. It will make 
all the difference in the world whether you look at your 
employers simply as men who for the time being have 
an advantage over you, or who in some sense are your 
instruments, or are obstacles in your way ; or, on the 
other hand, as being, like yourselves, children of God, 
going with you to a common home and to a common 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 193 

judgment, toward whom you are bound to cherish all 
Christian feelings. 

Be sure, after having entered into any relationships, 
to faithfully perform your part. Be careful that you 
do not fall into a narrow, selfish, calculating mood. 
Especially avoid measuring every obligation and every 
fulfillment of duty upon a very narrow gauge, saying, 
" How little must I do to discharge my duty ? How 
few hours can I afford to put in ? How little diligence 
can I use ? " Guard most particularly against measur- 
ing what you do by the character of the persons for 
whom you do it. Bemember that there are always two 
parties in every partnership, and if you happen in God's 
providence to be placed under persons of merit and 
worth, you owe it first to them and secondly to your- 
selves, to act in a high and honorable way. But if 
your employers are as mean as mean can be, you never 
can afford, for your own sake, to act in any except a 
large, magnanimous, and manly way. There is no 
excuse for your acting peevishly or unfaithfully under 
any circumstances. 

Always aim to do more and not less than is expected 
of you. Even though the expectation is unreasonable, 
it affords no excuse for unfaithfulness in you. Desire 
to do more than is put upon you ; and, even if you should 
be blamed at every step, keep that desire. The need- 
less fault-finding of your employers does not exonerate 
you from duty. If they are exacting, if they are a 
great deal too hard, it will not hurt you in the end. 
Nothing hurts an honorable man, nothing hurts a true 
man. I never saw a man spoiled because too much 
was exacted of him, or because he did too much, unless 



194 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

his hardships were so severe as to undermine or crush 
out his manliness, teaching him to do mean things, and 
leading him to run circuitous courses all around duty. 
If you are used hardly and roughly, you will be a 
tougher man in the end than if you had not received 
such usage. If you come out of such circumstances, 
you will come out as iron comes out of fire, — steel. 

All real or supposed evil; all oppression, if your 
employers oppress you; all cheating, if they cheat 
you; all manner of dishonorableness, if they put it 
upon you, — all these things can never justify you in 
doing the same things to them in retaliation, or acquit 
you of one single duty. If you are apprenticed to a 
miser, and if he diminishes your proper quantity of 
food, if he clothes you poorly, if he denies you your 
appropriate hours of relaxation, — these are his acts of 
wickedness. Do not make yourself a fellow to him by 
attempting to retaliate, by attempting to cheat him in 
the same way that he has cheated you. It is just as 
wrong for you to cheat him as for him to cheat you, 
although he may cheat you first. " Vengeance is mine : 
I will repay, saith the Lord." You have no right to 
undertake to repay men their wickedness in this world : 
you should leave that to God. And though the man 
that employs you be never so bad, do you remember to 
be good ; and every time you feel the edge of his evil, 
say to yourself, " I will see to it that I am not like 
him." Overcome evil with good. It is very difficult 
to do this, I know, especially in the presence of a hard 
and hateful man ; but I tell you it is duty, and duty 
can. always be performed. 

Do not, therefore, fall into the habit of measuring 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 195 

what you give and what you get, — service and remu- 
neration. In considering into what relations you shall 
enter in life, this is proper ; but when relations have 
once been established between one and another, the 
generous way of looking at things is the happier and 
better way, no matter how unequal it may seem. It is 
not best for you to disquiet yourself by turning over and 
over in your mind the circumstances you are in, and 
looking at them from the least favorable point of view. 
Always look on the hopeful side of things ; always re- 
gard things in a charitable light ; always take a generous 
view of things for your own sake, if on no other account. 

Eemember, also, that your moral character is worth 
more to you than everything else, in all your relationships 
in life. Not only for religious reasons, but even for the 
commonest secular reasons, this is so. It is very desira- 
ble that you should have information ; it is very de- 
sirable that you should have a skillful and nimble hand 
for the pursuit in which you are engaged ; it is very 
desirable that you should understand business and 
men and life ; but it is still more desirable that you 
should be a man of integrity, — of strict, untemptable, 
or at least unbreakable integrity, — even for civil and 
secular reasons. For nothing is so much in demand as 
simple untemptability in men ; nothing is in so much 
demand as men who are held, by the fear of God and 
by the love of rectitude, to that which is right. Their 
price is above rubies. More than wedges of gold are 
they worth ; and nowhere else are they worth so much 
as in cities and marts like this, where so much must be 
put at stake upon the fidelity of agents. 

It is very hard to find men now. You can find good 



196 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

trees in the woods for masts, but that is difficult ; yet 
you can find ten such sticks easier than you can find 
one man that will resist temptation. We must make 
men now as they make masts ; they saw down a dozen 
trees, splice them together, and bind them round with 
iron hoops, and thus make ijiasts that are supposed to 
be stronger than they would be if each was a w^hole 
piece of timber. And so with men : if you want a good 
man, you have to take a dozen men and splice them to- 
gether, and wind the hoops of responsibility round and 
round them, and put watching-bands all about them, 
before you can get a man with whom you will dare to 
leave your money ; and then he will run away with it. 
It is very hard to find a man of good sound timber 
that will stand the pressure of circumstances, that is 
without a flaw, that cannot be shaken, that will 
bear the stress of opportunity, temptation, and impu- 
nity. It is one of the most difficult matters to get a 
man who will safely go through these three things, — 
opportunity, temptation, impunity. A man that can go 
through these three things, and stand proved in truth 
and honesty, is beyond all price ; and it is such men 
that we want. Business needs them; everything in 
commercial life needs them. Wherefore, remember 
that in all your business relations you should be doing 
two things. While you are gaining an outward ac- 
quaintance with those various professions or pursuits 
in which you are to engage for a livelihood, you should 
be doing a much more important thing, namely, you 
should be gaining an inward integrity ; training your- 
self to be a man of upright dealing, establishing a char- 
acter for the strictest rectitude. 



PKACTICAL HINTS. 197 

Be very careful about your word. Be very shy of 
giving it ; but, once uttered, let it change to adamant. 
Be as careful of it as if you were fully conscious that 
the eye of the living God was upon you, for it is upon 
you. Once having given it, never allow yourself to 
take it up and weigh it. The moment a man begins to 
think about a dishonesty, he has half committed it; 
the moment a man begins to think about a lie, he has 
half told it ; the moment a man begins to pull out his 
word or his promise to examine it, you may be sure 
he will break it ; as when, in an affray, a soldier begins 
to pull his sword from its sheath, you know that there 
is blood going to be spilt somewhere. When a man, 
after having given his word, begins to say, " I do not 
mean to break my promise, but if I did there would be 
good cause. Is there not some flaw in it ? can I not 
interpret it thus and so?" — that moment his word, 
and with it his honor, is good for nothing. Never 
deliberate on your word, but let it go as the arrow goes 
to the target, — let it strike, and stand. 

Be firm, also, under all provocation and under all 
temptations. Be careful that you do no wrong to your 
employers, without regard to their character or merit, 
and without any regard to their treatment of you. Let 
it be a matter of religious honor with you never to 
wrong them in the least thing. Be just as firm in your 
determination never to do any wrong for them, as you 
are in your determination never to do any wrong against 
them. No matter if they do want a whiplash with 
which to strike out into iniquitous things, never let 
them tie you to their handle, and use you for such a 
purpose, however much it may cost you to resist their 



198 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

endeavors to degrade you in this manner. One thing 
is certain, that all special reasons that you may urge to 
justify you in yielding, under circumstances like these, 
in the end will fall to the ground. You may be sure 
that a young man who trusts to integrity has a compass 
that will never deceive him, through night and darkness, 
or through storms and winds and waves that threaten 
to overwhelm him. 

You are not to determine your duty, in matters of 
simple truth and honesty, by any fear of consequences. 
Suppose you are in debt ; suppose you are about to be 
pitched out of the establishment ; suppose you do not 
know where to get your daily bread, or how to pay for 
your clothes; suppose you are without friends, — God 
Almighty is on the side of every man who is right ! 
Wait patiently, and God will make it appear. Do you 
believe that he who will not let a sparrow fall to the 
ground without his notice will not care for you ? Do 
you believe that he who feeds the birds of the air will not 
supply your wants ? Do you believe that he who has 
starred the Bible all over with promises will let you 
make a sacrifice of yourself in integrity ? Is there no 
providence that takes care of men ? Is there no God 
of justice and of love who looks after his creatures ? 
Why should you be afraid to step out of the ship, if it 
be Christ who says, " Come to me " ? and when you 
step out upon the waves, why should you, like Peter, 
abandon your faith, and then sink because you are 
afraid ? Walk, no matter what may be the height of 
the wave or the fierceness of the storm, wherever duty 
calls. Eemember that it is Christ who says, " Come to 
me. " Go, and go fearlessly. But never wrong your 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 199 

employers ; neither do wrong for them. If they have 
got any mean work to be done, tell them to do it them- 
selves ; never do it for them. 

And generally, let me say, never ask a man to do 
for you anything that you would not do yourself; and 
never, under any circumstances whatever, do for any 
man that which you would not do for yourself. You 
cannot shift responsibility in such matters. If you do 
any false swearing, you cannot charge it to the estab- 
lishment. You cannot be delegated to tell a lie so 
that in telling it you will be exonerated from guilt. 
You cannot be the bearer of a false statement, and be 
no more responsible for it than the mail-bag is for the 
contents of the letters which are carried in it. If you 
tell a lie for a man, you tell the lie, however much he 
also may do it. There is no such thing as your doing 
a wrong for others without being responsible for that 
wrong yourself. And if, when men send you to per- 
form little meannesses, you trot quickly to do their 
bidding, they will mark you, and say, " He is fit for it " ; 
but if, when men attempt to put upon you such miser- 
able business they find you stiff in opposition, they 
will mark that also, and say, " Is that all a pretense, or 
is it real ? " They think that perhaps they have found 
a person to be trusted ; but they will not be satisfied 
till they have thoroughly tested you. They always 
wish to know if that which looks like gold is gold. So 
they will try you again and again ; and if you stand 
firm in your honesty, by and by they will say, " I do 
not know, after all, but he has got that thing in him. 
I have heard of conscience, and it may be that he has 
it. " Even after that they will try you in various ways, 



200 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

and when they find that your uprightness is not a mere 
freak, is not a mere fit, but that it has a substantial 
foundation in your character, they will begin to say, 
" By and by I shall want a partner or a confidential 
clerk, and here is a young man who is honorable, intel- 
ligent, and active, and if he has got that thing in him 
he is just the one for me ; but I will watch him, I will 
try him thoroughly before I enter into any important 
relationship with him. " For, I assure you, men think 
of a great many things in the office, when you are at 
work in the store below, that you do not dream of ; and 
you may depend upon it that when the sifting is all 
done, and the chaff is blown away, you that have been 
the soundest in your integrity will be among the 
plumpest of the wheat. Do not forget, therefore, that 
you are being educated for a moral purpose, and not 
merely for a secular one. 

Yet, I remark, do not be a man of integrity just 
because it is profitable. I would not like to put moral 
qualities up at auction as merchantable things. " God- 
liness, " it is true, " is profitable in all things, having 
promise of the life that now is and of that which is to 
come " ; but that is a very insufficient way of looking 
at it. Therefore, do not accustom yourselves to measure 
moral qualities by what they bring in the market, by 
mere gold and silver. Do not stop to ask how much 
your integrity costs you. Do not in any way take a 
low view of your moral training. If you find that 
truth and honesty and fidelity are not presently re- 
warded, do not be discouraged. It is conceit, some- 
times, that leads men to think they are not properly 
rewarded. All men have a conceit with reference to 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 201 

their deserts, and if within six months or a year after 
the performance of what they conceive to be a good 
act they are not rewarded for it, they are apt to feel 
injured. Do good, not ignorant that it will bring a 
reward, but do not do it for the sake of the reward 
which it will bring. Even if it brought no reward, you 
should do it for the sake of itself. 

A life of slippery experience can have but one end. 
Therefore be honest and truthful : be so because it is 
profitable, if you please ; but if it were not profitable, 
you should be so just the same. You certainly will 
gain more by this course, in a long run, than by the 
opposite one ; for I aver, that in nine hundred and 
ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, men who are not 
truthful, who are not diligent, who are not careful of 
their character, who are not honest, end disastrously. 

There are two things about riches : one is to catch 
them, and the other is to hold them. I have seen many 
a man get money as a man catches a bird. He has the 
bird safe till he goes to put it into the cage, but when 
he opens his hand to put it in, out and off it flies. So 
the riches of many men take to themselves wings and 
fly away. How many men have been rich for a brief 
period, say for two or three years, and then gone 
down in some speculation, just as before they had 
gone up in some speculation. There are many men 
who, by wrong dealing, get themselves into a kind of 
prosperity. People refer to them, and pompously say, 
" What sense is there in preaching that a man must 
have integrity ? " They may be rich now, but I will 
not answer for their riches five or ten years hence. If 
I then look to see where all their show and pomp is, I 



202 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

shall very likely find that these things are gone ; that 
they have passed away ; and that new faces occupy the 
places where they were. I would to God that there 
were moral as there are physical statistics. If there 
were, it would be shown that integrity and permanent 
prosperity go together. I know there are apparent 
exceptions on both sides, but the general truth is that 
a stable prosperity must stand upon integrity. 

Let me speak, next, of a subject which stands inti- 
mately connected with your prosperity and virtue in life. 
I refer to. the matter of your health. I feel more in- 
clined to do so because there are so many who have no 
friends to teach them on this subject, and who have no 
information respecting it. Health is the foundation of 
all things in this life. Although work is healthy and 
occupation almost indispensable to health and happi- 
ness, yet excessive work which taxes the brain almost 
invariably ends in weakening the digestive organs. 
There are men here who overtax their minds all day 
long, through months and years, ignorant that there is 
a subtle but inevitable connection between .dyspepsia 
and too much mental exertion. I see around me the 
effects of too intense mental application in scholars, in 
bankers, in merchants, and in business men of every 
other class. It is a thing which every man should un- 
derstand, that there is a point beyond which, if he urge 
his brain, the injurious result will be felt, not in the 
head, but in the stomach. The nerves of the stomach 
become weakened by excessive mental application ; and 
the moment a man loses his stomach, the citadel of his 
physical life is taken. All your body is renewed from 
the blood of your system, and that blood is made from 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 203 

the food taken into the stomach. The capacity of the 
blood to renew nerve and fibre and bone and muscle, 
and thus to keep you in a state of health, depends upon 
the perfectness of your digestive functions. 

There is scarcely one man in a hundred who sup- 
poses that he must ask leave of his stomach to be a 
happy man. In many cases the difference between 
happy men and unhappy men is caused by their diges- 
tion. Oftentimes the difference between hopeful men 
and melancholy men is simply the difference of their 
digestion. There is much that is called spiritual 
ailment that is nothing but stomachic ailment. I 
have, during my experience as a religious teacher, had 
persons call upon me with that hollow cheek, that 
emaciated face, and that peculiar look which indicate 
the existence of this cerebral and stomachic difficulty, 
to tell me about their trials and temptations ; and, 
whatever I may have said to them, my inward thought 
has been, "There is very little help that can be afforded 
you till your health is established." The foundation of 
all earthly happiness is physical health ; and yet men 
scarcely ever value it till they have lost it. 

Eemember, also, that too little sleep is almost as 
inevitably fatal as anything can be to your health and 
happiness. Suppose you do work very hard all day 
long, that is no reason why you should say, " I am not 
going to be a mere pack-horse ; and if I cannot have 
pleasure by day I will have it at night." You are tak- 
ing the very substance out of your body when you burn 
the lamp of pleasure till one or two o'clock at night. It 
may be that at certain seasons of the year you may, now 
and then, diminish the quantity of rest and sleep, and 



204 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

still retain your health ; but for a young man to follow 
the excitations of pleasure continually is like burning 
many wicks in one lamp. He cannot do it for any con- 
siderable length of time without destroying his consti- 
tution. There is nothing more inevitable than that the 
want of sleep undermines the body itself. As a general 
rule, eight hours of sleep are necessary for a young per- 
son. There is a difference, however, in the amount of 
sleep required by different persons of the same age. A 
nervous man does not usually need as much sleep as a 
phlegmatic man, for the reason that some men accom- 
plish more sleep in the same time than others. A 
nervous man will walk a mile quicker, will eat his 
meals quicker, will do everything quicker, and will there- 
fore sleep quicker than a phlegmatic man. Some men 
will do as much sleep- work in six hours as other men 
will in eight hours. Some, therefore, can do with less 
sleep than others ; but whatever may be the amount 
which experience teaches you that you need, that 
amount you should take. It may excite a smile when 
I say it, but it is nevertheless true, that it is a part of 
your religious duty to sleep. A great many men have 
destroyed the usefulness of their lives* through igno- 
rance of this indispensable law of recuperation. 

I may, without impropriety, speak of my own ex- 
perience in this matter. I attribute much of my power 
of endurance to the discreet direction of an experienced 
father, from whom I obtained, early in life, some right 
ideas respecting diet, exercise, and sleep. I have been 
accustomed, under constant taxation of public labor, 
that made excitement inevitable and continued, for 
more than twenty years, to divide each day into two 
days, sleeping a little near the middle of the day. 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 205 

For more than twenty years, under constant taxation 
of public labor of a most exciting kind, I have main- 
tained health and good spirits by a conscientious and 
scrupulous observance of the laws of health, and in 
nothing have I been more careful than in securing 
sleep. God has made sleep to be a sponge by which to 
rub out fatigue. A man's roots are planted in night as 
in a soil, and out of it he comes every day with fresh 
growth and bloom. 

Diet and out-of-door exercise are also elements of 
health not to be neglected with impunity. There are 
many who have not their choice in this regard ; and I 
am truly sorry for those who are obliged, by the nature 
of their calling or the terms of their engagement, to 
forego exercise in the open air. It is a painful sight 
to see workingmen looking pale and emaciated, like 
plants that grow in the shade, without that robust- 
ness or that healthy hue that comes from work out of 
doors. 

I desire that there may be no notions of religion 
which shall lead men to think that there is any harm 
in robust, manly exercise, — in fencing, riding, boxing, 
rowing, rolling, or casting the javelin or quoit. These 
exercises, when prudently and properly indulged in, are 
beneficial. Whatever tends to give you a robust and 
developed physical system is in favor of virtue and 
against vice, other things being equal. 

All the passions that carry with them anxiety or 

care, anger, envy, jealousy, or fear, or any other of the 

malign feelings, are positively unhealthy. A man who 

lives in any of these lower feelings is living in a state 

in which he is all the time decreasing the vital con- 
10 



206 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ditions of his body, and rendering himself more and 
more liable to be attacked by disease ; whereas a man 
who lives in courage and hope, up above all the lower 
passions, in a state of cheerful happiness, is, from the 
nature of his feelings, all the time repelling the assaults 
of disease. A man who is buoyant and happy has a 
strong chance for health. Add to this the wickedness 
of a demoralizing indulgence of the passions, which is 
always unhealthy, and I do not wonder that so many 
men break down ; I do not wonder that our streets are 
full of shambles where our young men are slaughtered 
in hecatombs, especially when they add to their other 
indulgences that of drinking beyond all bounds. It is 
strange to see how men will drain themselves of vitality 
in the w T ays of vice. I only marvel that men live as 
long as they do. I wonder that they live a year, when 
sometimes they live five years ; I wonder that they live 
a month, where they live a year. If there were no 
reason in self-respect to lead us to check our appetites, 
there is a reason in health that should make a young 
man afraid as death of houses of dissipation and vice. 
You may think there is pleasure there, and so there is, 
just enough to scum over the cup of disease and death. 
The beginnings of the ways of vice may be pleasant, but 
the ends thereof are damnation. 

I pass, next, to speak of the care and culture of your 
minds ; and this part of my discourse relates especially 
to the young who are under employers, and are learning 
occupations that are not themselves directly intellectual. 
It is not a small thing for a man to be able to make 
his hands light by supplementing them with his head. 
The advantage which intelligence gives a man is very 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 207 

great. It oftentimes increases one's mere physical 
ability full one half. Active thought, or quickness in 
the use of the mind, is very important in teaching us 
how to use our hands rightly in every possible relation 
and situation in life. The use of the head abridges the 
labor of the hands. There is no drudgery, there is no 
mechanical routine, there is no minuteness of function, 
that is not advantaged by education. If a man has 
nothing to do but to turn a grindstone, he had better 
be educated ; if a man has nothing to do but to stick 
pins on a paper, he had better be educated ; if he has 
to sweep the streets, he had better be educated. It 
makes no difference what you do, you will do it better 
if you are educated. An intelligent man knows how 
to bring knowledge to bear upon whatever he has to 
do. It is a mistake to suppose that a stupid man 
makes a better laborer than one who is intelligent. If 
I wanted a man to drain my farm, or merely to throw the 
dirt out from a ditch, I would not get a stupid drudge 
if I could help it. In times when armies have to pass 
through great hardships, it is the stupid soldiers that 
break down quickest; while the men of intelligence, 
who have mental resources, hold out longest. It is a 
common saying that blood will always tell in horses : I 
know that intelligence will tell in men. 

"Whatever your occupation may be, it is worth your 
while to be a man of thought and intellectual resources. 
It is worth your while to be educated thoroughly for 
any business. If you are a mechanic or tradesman, 
education is good enough for you, and you are good 
enough for it. Sometimes Wonder is expressed that a 
man who has been through college, and who is there- 



208 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

fore supposed to be educated, should bury himself in 
business. But why should he not ? Has not a mer- 
chant a right to be an educated man ? Do you suppose 
a man has no right to an education unless he is going 
to be a doctor, a minister, a lawyer, or some kind of a 
public man ? I affirm the right of every man in the 
community to an education. A man should educate 
himself for his own sake, even if his education should 
benefit no one else in the world. Every man's educa- 
tion does, however, benefit others besides himself. 
There is no calling, except that of slave-catching, for 
Christian governments, that is not made better by 
brains. No matter what a man's work is, he is a better 
man for having had a thorough mind-drilling. If you 
are to be a farmer, go to college or to the academy, 
first. If you are to be a mechanic, and you have an 
opportunity of getting an education, get that first. If 
you mean to follow the lowest calling, — one of those 
callings termed " menial, " — do not be ignorant ; have 
knowledge. A man can do without luxuries and 
wealth and public honors, but not without knowledge. 
Poverty is not disreputable, but ignorance is. 

One of the things which our age and which this land 
has to develop, is the compatibility of manual labor 
with real refinement and education. This is to be one 
of the problems of the age. We must show that 
knowledge is not the monopoly of professions, not the 
privilege of wealth, not the prerogative of leisure, but 
that knowledge and refinement belong to hard-working 
men as much as to any other class of men. And I 
hope to see the day when there will be educated day- 
laborers, educated mechanics, refined and educated 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 209 

farmers and ship-masters ; for we must carry out into 
practice our theory of men's equality, and of common 
worth in matters of education. We must endeavor to 
inspire every calling in life with an honest ambition 
for intelligence. There is no calling that will not be 
lifted up by it. Whatever may be your business, then, 
make it a point to get from it, or in spite of it, a good 
education. 

Never whine over what you may suppose to be the 
loss of early opportunities. A great many men have 
good early opportunities who never improve -them ; and 
many have lost their early opportunities without losing 
much. Every man may educate himself that wishes 
to. It is the will that makes the way. Many a slave 
that wanted knowledge has listened while his masters 
children were saying their letters and putting them 
together to form easy words, and thus caught the first 
elements of spelling ; and then, lying flat on his belly 
before the raked-up coals and embers, with a stolen 
book, has learned to read and write. If a man has 
such a thirst for knowledge as that, I do not care where 
you put him, he will become an educated man. 

Hugh Miller, the quarry man, became one of the 
most learned men in natural science in the Old World. 
Eoger Sherman came up from a shoemaker's bench. 
A blacksmith may become a universal linguist. You 
can educate yourself. Where there is a will there is a 
way ; and in almost every business of life there is much 
which demands reading, study, and thinking. Every 
mechanic should make himself a respectable mathe- 
matician. He ought to understand the principles of 
his business ; and if, when he has been engaged in it 



210 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

five or ten years, lie has never had the interest to search 
out such of those principles as are within his reach, it 
is a sign that he is without laudable ambition. Every 
man who has to do with construction should have a 
knowledge of the philosophy of mechanics. 

A clerk in a dry-goods store has an encyclopaedia on 
his shelves. If he will trace back the fabrics *to the 
countries from whence they came ; if he will learn of 
what materials they are composed, the climate of the 
country in which each grew, the nature of the soil in 
which each* was produced, the kind of people by whom 
each article was wrought, the process by which it was 
made, the character of the machinery employed in its 
manufacture ; and will seek to answer the thousands 
of questions which are suggested to the mind by the 
color, the figure, etc., of the various articles by which 
he is surrounded, he will find that there is in any 
ordinary store of dry-goods more than a man could 
learn in a lifetime. If all the knowledge that would 
be required to trace out the facts relating to all the 
fabrics in Stewart's store were to be written, Appleton's 
bookstore would hardly hold the books that it would 
fill. But if the clerk stands in the store with his hands 
behind him, thinking that his only business is to sell 
dry-goods, his goods will not be half so dry as he is. 
It is a shame for men to remain ignorant in the midst 
of provocatives to knowledge. There should be so 
strong a hunger for knowledge among men, that no 
provocatives would be required to induce them to 
obtain it. It is a disgrace for a man to be ignorant 
that has lived five years a freeman in a free community. 
If he comes under the bankrupt law and pleads stu- 
pidity, that is another thing. 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 211 

Life itself, moreover, is an academy. There is some- 
thing to be learned from everybody, in every place, 
about everything. A man that has eyes and ears, and 
uses them, can go nowhere without finding himself a 
pupil and everybody a teacher. Conceit it is, a con- 
temptible satisfaction with your present state, a com- 
placent pride, that stagnates all your faculties, and 
leads you up and down the street, among all sorts of 
men, collecting nothing. Every ride in a car, every 
walk in the street, every sail in a boat, every visit to 
the store, the shop, or the dwelling, should make you a 
richer man in knowledge. You should never return 
without some conscious increase of information. 

Eemember, too, in respect to this matter of education, 
that you are a citizen, and that you are bound to have 
that information which shall qualify you for an honest 
participation in public affairs. You are also bound to 
have a knowledge of current events, which no man 
can have who does not read the newspapers. News- 
papers are the schoolmasters of the common people. 
The newspaper is one of the things that we may felici- 
tate ourselves upon. That endless book, the news- 
paper, is our national glory. For example, how many 
of our young men and young women, now that Europe 
stands all ajar, when apparently new combinations are 
to take place upon a scale that is gigantic, such as may 
take place but once in the course of their lifetime, — 
how many young men and women are preparing them- 
selves to follow these events ? How many have taken 
down the atlas, and marked out the lines of France, of 
the Italian provinces, of the Austrian Empire, and of 
the Prussian Empire? How many have drawn the 



212 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

boundaries of Tuscany, acquainted themselves with the 
position of Turin, and traced the course of the Ticino ? 
How many know where Piedmont is located ? 

When I was a lad some ten years old, I had the priv- 
ilege of going to school to a farmer's son, who was him- 
self a farmer and also a captain of the militia. I rec- 
ollect to have heard my father say of him, that he had 
studied military affairs in his quiet career so thoroughly, 
that probably there was not another man in the State 
of Connecticut that could detail so fully the history and 
philosophy of all the campaigns of Napoleon as he. 
This was a mere incidental remark made at the table, 
but it has had a great deal to do with my life. It 
opened to me the idea, though I did not know it 
then, that a workingman in humble circumstances 
might, by ordinary diligence, put himself in possession 
of information that should be world-wide. 

I can say, also, that in an early day my own mind 
was very much interested in the peninsular war be- 
tween the French and Spanish and English armies, in 
Spain. I was so interested in the events connected 
with that war, that I carefully read Napier's matchless 
history of it, — one of the noblest monuments of mili- 
tary history ever given to the world. I studied mi- 
nutely, with map in hand, that whole campaign. I 
never read a book in college, or during the whole course 
of my life, that did me half so much good as that his- 
tory, though it was a matter but incidental to my pro- 
fession. 

Now, do not suppose that to obtain this information 
of current events in your own land, or upon the broad 
theater of the world, will require a great deal of time 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 213 

which you must withdraw from other things. Almost 
every man wastes as many five minutes and ten min- 
utes as he would require to give himself a good educa- 
tion. You throw away time enough to make you a wise 
man, both in book literature and current events. A 
volume read a little every morning wastes away most 
rapidly. A man that is much occupied, in the course 
of a year, would have leisure in the crevices of his time 
if he took the parings, the rinds of it ; if he took a little 
in the morning before others were up, and he might 
take a great deal then, if he got up when he ought to ; 
if he took a little before each meal and a little after 
each meal ; if he took a little on his way to his busi- 
ness and a little on his way back from his business ; if 
he took a little while riding in the cars and a little 
while crossing the ferries, — I say that even a much- 
occupied man would, in the course of one year, have 
leisure in these crevices of his time to make himself mas- 
ter of the history of his own country. It does not take 
a man a great while to read a book through, if he only 
keeps at it. 

A history of the institutions of the country, its laws 
and its polity ; a history of the principal nations of the 
world, their manners and their customs ; a history of 
the physical globe, its geology, its geography, and its 
natural productions; and some knowledge of the arts 
and of the fine arts, — may be had by every laboring man, 
every clerk, and every woman. There is no excuse for 
you if you do not understand these things. You do 
not need to go to school, to a college, or to an academy 
to learn them. They are published in books, and the 
books are accessible. Somebody has got them. You 



214 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

need not advertise in the newspapers, asking for a man 
who will lend you an encyclopaedia. You can learn 
something everywhere. Everybody can tell you some- 
thing. Ask for knowledge, if you desire it. If you 
were hungry, I do not believe you would starve. I 
think you would ask for food before you would die. I 
think you would work for bread before you would 
perish. And you ought to be ten times as hungry for 
knowledge as for food for the body. 

Among the finest pictures in the Boston Athenaeum, 
and the finest part of the library of the Massachusetts 
Historical Collection, you will find those pictures and 
books which were collected and bound during the life- 
time, and donated at the death, of a man who spent his 
days in the active practice of a mechanical employment. 
He was a leather-dresser. He bought the best books 
and read them, and then secured for them the very best 
dress, — for a good book deserves a good dress, — and at 
his death he gave them to these public institutions; 
and they are valuable beyond what they would bring in 
market as so much treasure. I never look at those 
books in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, and 
at those pictures in the Boston Athenaeum, without 
thinking how much a mechanic can do. 

Here was a man who was fond of art, and who built 
himself up in knowledge, notwithstanding his business 
was that of a tanner. This business, however, even 
though there be a Scriptural precedent for it, is not an 
inviting one. The class of men engaged in that busi- 
ness now have no particular taste for the fine arts ; but 
the time has been when they had, and the time may 
come when they will have again. There is no business 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 215 

so derogatory that culture is not compatible with it. 
The trouble is, men do not want to know, or else they 
are lazy. 

Why should you, an apprentice or a clerk or a day- 
workman, not wish to see galleries of pictures as much 
as I or any other man ? I see that there is a great 
deal of enthusiasm about Church's picture, and I do not 
wonder at it. I am proud of the picture and of the man 
who painted it. But I go among some classes of people, 
and hear not one word about it. Now, why should not 
a blacksmith, as well as any other man, say, " I have 
heard that there is a splendid picture on exhibition up 
town, and I am going to see it " ? Why should not a 
man who wields the broad-axe say, " I am going to see 
it"? Then there is the Academy of Design. I look, 
and those I see there are principally richly dressed 
people. I am not sorry to see persons in silk and 
satin and broadcloth there ; but I am sorry not to see 
there more clerks and workingmen. I am astonished 
that I do not see more there from among the fifty 
thousand clerks and the two hundred and fifty thousand 
laboring men in New York, when I remember that 
fifty cents will give a person permission to go there 
as much as he pleases during a whole season. The 
trouble is, they are hungry in the stomach and not in 
the head. People should be hungry with the eye and 
the ear as well as with the mouth. If all a man's 
necessaries of life go in at the port-hole of the stomach, 
it is a bad sign. A man's intelligence should be 
regarded by him as of more importance than the 
gratification of his physical desires. I long to see my 
countrymen universally intelligent. I long to see those 



216 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

in the lower walks of life building themselves up in all 
true appetites and relishes and tastes. I love to see 
them aspiring after knowledge and refinement, and em- 
ploying the means required to obtain them. In this 
way, should you never become rich, you can afford to 
be poor. A woman who does not know anything can- 
not afford to live in an attic, and sew for five cents a 
shirt, half so well as one who is intelligent. A woman 
who has a soul that can appreciate God's blessings, that 
can read his secrets in nature, that can see his love for 
his creatures displayed in all his works, — she, if any- 
body, can bear that hardship. I pity the drudge that 
has no intelligence or refinement. If I see poor people 
that have cultivated minds, I say, " Thank God, they 
have so much, at least." There are none that stand 
hardship so well as those who are cultivated. If, hav- 
ing secured intelligence and refinement, you ever do 
become rich, you will not be dependent upon your 
wealth for happiness, and therefore you will not be in 
danger of the vulgar ostentation of crude riches. 

There are two things that delight my very soul. 
First, I delight to see a hard-working and honest 
laboring man, especially if he has some dirty calling 
like that, for instance, of a butcher, a tallow-chandler, 
or a dealer in fish or oil, — I delight to see such a man 
get rich, by fair and open methods, and then go and 
build him a house in the best neighborhood in the 
place, and build it so that everybody says, " He has got 
a fine house, and it is in good taste too." It does me 
good, it makes me fat to the very marrow, to see him 
do that. And, next, when he prospers, I delight to see 
him, after he has built his house so as to adapt it to all 



PRACTICAL HINTS. 217 

the purposes of a household, employ his wealth with 
such judicious taste, and manifest such an appreciation 
of things fine and beautiful, that it shall say to the 
world, with silent words louder than any vocalization, 
"A man may be a workiugman and follow a menial 
calling, and yet carry within him a noble soul and have 
a cultivated and refined nature." I like to see men 
that have been chrysalids break their covering and come 
out with all the beautiful colors of the butterfly. 

I have not half exhausted the interest T feel, nor said 
all that is proper to be uttered, in reference to the intel- 
ligence of those who are called to labor, yet I will not 
pursue this point further. 

In the last place, I must not fail to urge upon every 
one the importance of personal religion in his toil and 
strife of life. I urge it upon every man as a duty 
which he owes to God. I urge it upon every man as 
a joy and comfort which he owes to himself. The 
sweetest life that a man can live is that which is keyed 
to love toward God and love toward man. I urge it 
upon the young especially as a safeguard and help in 
all parts of their life. I urge it, lastly, upon every 
man as a preparation for that great and solemn event 
which bounds every man's life, and which cannot be far 
off from any man. 

I shall close this discourse by reading words which, 
though written three thousand years ago, come rolling 
down to us from the past without having lost one 
single particle of freshness, and which are just as true 
now as they have been at any intermediate age since 
they were first uttered : — 

" Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not 



218 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways ac- 
knowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not 
wise in thine own eyes ; fear the Lord, and depart from 
evil. It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to 
thy bones. Honor the Lord with thy substance and 
with the first-fruits of all thy increase; so shall thy 
barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst 
out with new wine. My son, despise not the chasten- 
ing of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction ; for 
whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father 
the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man 
that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth under- 
standing ; for the merchandise of it is better than the 
merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine 
gold. She is more precious than rubies ; and all the 
things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto 
her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her 
left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of 
pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a 
tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy 
is every one that retaineth her." Amen and amen. 





IX. 




PROFANE SWEARING. 

"But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by 
heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other 
oath : but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye 
fall into condemnation." — jas. v. 12. 

HEEE is a great deal of difference between 
a judicial oath and profane swearing. Both 
of them are an appeal to higher powers. 
Both of them, either directly or indirectly, 
imply a reference to the authority and the sanctity of 
God's judgment. Where, for some important end, men 
make affirmations and bind themselves to the truth of 
what they say by a solemn appeal to God ; where they 
do it in temperate moments and with reverence ; where 
they do it, not so much by the motion of their own 
feelings as by the administration of a tribunal, and 
under appointed forms ; and where they are in earnest 
in thus giving solemnity to their statements of truth, 
— not only do they not violate reverence nor mar the 
solemnity that should always attend the name of God, 
but they enhance these elements of veneration. On 
the other hand, when men without a purpose, on the 
most trivial occasions, in a manner worse than light, 
inspired by angry and violent feeling, bring out the 



220 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

name of God or of sacred things to be trodden under 
foot of their passions, they do great irreverence to God 
or to these sacred things, and therefore do themselves 
great harm. 

If an oath be administered by a civil magistrate, it 
does not lie under the condemnation of Scripture ; and 
yet, I am bound to say in passing, that the manner in 
which oaths are administered by civil magistrates in 
our courts of justice is such as to make it almost desir- 
able that they should be entirely dispensed with. It 
has become wellnigh a farce. These oaths have ceased 
to be consciously appeals to God. They are the emptiest 
formalities. They add very little to the sanctity of the 
statements that are made. A person who has conscience 
will state the truth under such circumstances without 
an oath ; and a person who is without conscience will 
not state it any more nearly under an oath. 

Profane swearing, however, is seldom an appeal for 
the confirmation of anything. It is an aimless and 
useless employment of the Divine name. It is generally 
accompanied with cursing. There is a difference be- 
tween cursing and swearing. Swearing is some mode 
of reference to the divine Being and divine things and 
sanctities ; whereas cursing is a solicitation of evil upon 
a fellow-man or some other object. 

When we consider that the best thoughts of men and 
their highest and noblest qualities are involved in their 
religion, in their conception of the divine Being, and of 
the place where he dwells, profane swearing can mean 
nothing less than the habit of using vulgarly and grossly 
those most sacred thoughts of the human mind. 

It would seem as though this were impossible. It 



PROFANE SWEARING. 221 

would seem as though men could scarcely be brought 
to empty their minds of the very treasures, the best 
things which belong to humanity, that they might be 
trodden under foot; but so it is. 

There is no evil more widespread than that of pro- 
fane swearing. Physicians know that after our war, 
when our soldiers disbanded, they carried from their 
camps to their homes, in cities and villages and country 
places, many infectious disorders, and that for years the 
medical practitioner had largely to do with camp dis- 
eases, or variations of them. 

And there were many other mischiefs that went 
with the war. Among them was the more general 
outbreaking of profanity. It is stated by those who 
are to be believed, that it existed very largely in the 
armies and in the camps; that men who had never 
sworn at home learned the bad trick in the army ; and 
that even members of the church, professedly Christian 
men, indulged themselves in this guilty luxury. And 
it seems to me that there has broken out, among the 
young and among others, a greater license. I hope I 
am mistaken, but it has seemed to me as though there 
was more facility in the use of profane language, as 
though it had crept into circles where before it was 
principally disallowed, and as though lips indulged 
themselves in the milder forms of objurgation or im- 
precation that at other times had been clean of such 
impurity. I think, therefore, that it is not untimely 
for me to discuss before you the nature of profane 
swearing and the evils that accompany it. 

Men often answer, when they are reprehended, that 
swearing is a mere superficial habit ; that it is not really 



222 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

and seriously meant ; that the imprecations which they 
utter are all empty and shallow ; that they do not mean 
what they say. Sometimes they tell you that they 
could lay aside swearing without the least difficulty. 
At other times they tell you that it is a thing which 
they could not possibly cure themselves of. They in- 
sist that at any rate it is but a skin disease, and that a 
man may be a noble fellow, warm-hearted, robust, truth- 
telling, faithful to obligations, industrious, moral, and in 
the main a good son or father and neighbor, though he 
be addicted a little to swearing. The habit of swearing 
is a mere interjectional habit, men say. 

It is worth our while, therefore, to look a little into 
it, and see if it be so mild a fault. 

What, then, is the effect of swearing upon taste and 
the moral sensibilities ? It takes away from the highest 
themes their sanctity, and from the noblest names their 
grandeur. Irreverence for the best thoughts of man- 
kind, — can that be harmless ? Are men by nature or 
by practice so addicted to reverence that it can do 
them but little harm to lower the tone and intensity 
of it ? Are men so filled with a sense of the glories of 
the invisible, of the overruling powers, that it can do 
them no harm if you take away from them the sense 
of God, present with us ? Is it a light thing to have all 
our ideals debased ? Is it a light thing to have a man's 
noble and moral imaginations stained and daubed by 
his passions ? Is it a light matter so utterly to destroy 
veneration that there is none in the heaven above and 
none in all the universe that is so high but that a 
man can take His name as a football for his passions ? 
Is it a small thing to destroy men's reverence for those 



PROFANE SWEARING. 223 

names, those personages that are of transcendent dignity 
and importance ? Is it a small thing so far as the per- 
son himself is concerned ? 

Try it on a more familiar plane. Is it of no impor- 
tance that the names of those whom you love are kept 
free from reproach and sacred? Would you, that 
have spirit and are faithful to your friendships, permit 
men to soil the names of those who are nearest and 
dearest to you with foul epithets or with gross familiar- 
ity ? Would you not stop them on the moment ? And 
why is it, but that men feel everywhere without reflec- 
tion, spontaneously, that friendship and the sense of 
delicacy and honor, as they inhere in the names of those 
who are dearly related to them, are marred and tar- 
nished when those names are abused ? Would you 
yourself be willing, would you dare, to use the names 
of your father and your mother so that there should 
perish from them the associations which you had of the 
dignities and sweetnesses of the household, — the mean- 
ings which make father and mother words of music to 
you, which sound in your memory and kindle up your 
ideals ? Would you, in the outburst of your passions, 
damn your father and curse your mother, and roll these 
names round in the wallow and filth of earthly things ? 
Does not every man shrink from it as a thing monstrous 
and unnatural ? Would you, if your mother were passed 
away, swear by her name ? Would you curse by her 
memory ? Would you, with all ingenious combinations, 
point the edge of your affirmation by intense passions 
with your mother's name ? You know you would not. 
A very beast you would conceive yourself to be if you 
did. Would you, young man, proud of your sister, to 



224 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

whom she is as a flower, — you who rejoice to hear her 
praises, — permit her name to be abused or tossed from 
lip to lip ? There is something generous in a brother's 
love, as well as something devoted in a sister's love ; 
and if you walked among your companions and they 
employed her name, so dear to you, so full of sweet- 
ness and delicacy, in such a way as to vulgarize it by 
familiarity, would there not be war between you and 
them, and would you not feel, " I cannot afford to have 
a name in which is treasured so much of my life hum- 
bled and degraded " ? Who that had passed from the 
state of the lover into the wedded relation would per- 
mit his wife's name to be shamefully debased, lowered, 
by being mouthed by men for vulgar purposes ? 

There is not a single one of the relationships of life, 
that could be used as profane men use the name of 
God, except by the most degraded of men. 

Now is this irreverential use of sacred names of no 
consequence ? Is objection to it a mere illusion ? Is 
not the practice, on the contrary, depressing and de- 
stroying? It is. When, therefore, men take those 
names which are above every other name, out of 
which come father and mother, — the name of God the 
Creator, and of Jesus Christ the Saviour, and of the 
Holy Ghost the Enlightener, — and degrade them; 
when men bring down these august titles and employ 
them in their most familiar speech, in the indulgence 
of their passions, in their brutal wassails, — they are 
destroying the very bloom, the very sensibility, the 
very moral quality, of their nature. 

You say that it does not do you any hurt to swear. 
I say it does. You say that a man may be generous 



PROFANE SWEARING. 225 

and truth-speaking, though he swear. I say that it is 
impossible for a man to sweep out of the heavens, as 
with a sponge, all the sacredness of God, and be as 
good a man as he was before. I say that it takes the 
temper out of a man's honor. I say that it essentially 
lowers a man's being, to be a profane swearer. You 
may think that it is a trifling vice, a foible ; but I say 
that it is an essential degradation, that it is a central 
sin, for a man to destroy his reverence for that which 
is noblest and best. 

At the very beginning, therefore, profane swearing, 
this irreverential use of divine names and divine 
thoughts, deteriorates a man's moral tone. It lowers 
him in the scale of being. 

There is another fact following this, which we should 
do well to measure and consider, namely, that while 
we are thus injuring our own selves, we are at the same 
time corrupting others, since swearing of necessity is 
public, since it is open, and falls upon the ears of those 
who are around about us, setting an example which will 
be peculiarly seductive to persons of a susceptible tem- 
perament, — to the imitative, the sympathetic, the heed- 
less, the uncultured. 

There are many vices which destroy men themselves, 
where they are, as it is said, " their own worst enemies." 
But while profane swearing, or an irreverential dealing 
with sacred themes, injures the man himself more or 
less, it also injures those who are associated with him. 
It takes away the purity and the beauty of sacred 
things to those who are not accustomed to it. The 
man who in the shop is not guarded in his conversa- 
tion, and who is perpetually pouring out violent oaths. 



226 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

is essentially injuring his companions who work with 
him there. 

It is accounted very discreditable for a man to carry 
his diseases around obtrusively in the presence of other 
people. If a man who had a loathsome itch should go 
around in refined society, rubbing against men, women, 
children, cleanly and respectable persons, and should, 
when cautioned against the mischief that he was doing, 
say, " Yes, yes, yes, — a mere skin matter/' and should 
go on conferring it upon other men, what would you 
think of him ? 

Young men, under the influence of their passions, 
infected with the disease of swearing, have gone about 
pouring out their billingsgate and profane oaths, deteri- 
orating not men's bodily conditions, but their moral 
purity, their imagination, taking star after star out of 
their heavens, and more and more breaking the power 
of the .great invisible world, in which is man's true 
strength and treasure ; but can one do this, and still 
pretend to be a man ? 

If there were such a thing as a silent oath ; if there 
were such a thing as dry swearing; if a man swore 
under his handkerchief, — there would be less to be rep- 
rehended ; but to go spewing out oaths along the street, 
on the deck, in the shop, where men do congregate, and 
to pollute their ears, making all that listen common 
sewers of the filth, conveying it away, is abominable. 
It is not a mere foible. It is a nastiness which ought 
to stamp every man as a vulgar fellow. You have no 
more right to swear in my ear than you have to insult 
my father and mother. 

This leads me to say, that while swearing is a perni- 



PKOFANE SWEARING. 227 

cious example to those who are susceptible, it oftentimes 
becomes excessive impoliteness and unkindness to those 
who are sensitive to the dignity and grandeur of the 
divine Being. 

It requires but very little culture to have regard for 
people's feelings. I will bring you men that live by 
pugilism who, where there is sickness and death, ex- 
hibit a sort of clumsy delicacy. No man would go 
into a house where there was death, and talk to those 
who were bereaved in the midst of their sorrow and 
anguish as he would talk to persons under ordinary 
circumstances. Men make allowance for such things. 
They regard the feelings of their fellows. But the 
swearer does not. He goes into the midst of those who 
are shocked and hurt by profane oaths, and swears re- 
gardless of their suffering. 

God is my Father, and when you take his name 
brutally upon your lips, you hurt me ; but you have no 
right to hurt me. You hurt me more than if you laid 
your hand on my person. You hurt me in my highest 
feelings. You hurt me where I am consciously striving 
to build up my true manhood. You throw your arrow 
high, and it strikes near the very heart. 

How men sometimes drop an oath in the presence 
of Christians on purpose to disturb their feelings ! As 
men stir up a beleaguered city, throwing in bombs, so 
swearers often throw oaths at Christian men to stir 
them up. 

Now, when I am living in the faith of God and of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, with a consciousness that it is 
by the death of the Saviour that I am spared ; when 
I have gathered around these names the sweetest 



228 LECTUBES TO YOUNG MEN. 

thoughts and the purest sanctities which are possible 
to the soul, and have dressed them with all that shall 
make them precious to my thought, my life, and my 
life to come, so that all I have is in them, and so that 
I can say, u Chief among ten thousand and altogether 
lovely is my Kedeemer," — who is he that profanes the 
sanctity of these emotions by indulging in my presence 
in vile and villainous oaths ? A man who swears, first 
damages his own moral sense, then misleads those 
about him, and then is guilty of cruel impoliteness to 
those to whom God's name is sweet and sacred. 

Swearing is a mean thing for a man to practice ; and, 
garnish it as you will, if you are a profane swearer you 
are a mean fellow. 

It is also a matter of dread insult to God, and there- 
fore a matter of gross impiety, a matter of guilt, and a 
matter of danger. There can be no excuse for it. 
There is no excuse for wickedness that is valid, but 
there are often many palliations. That is to say, many 
of the sins that men commit are in the line of animal 
obedience. When one commits the sin of intemperance, 
we know that there is a natural appetite along the line 
of which he may travel with perfect propriety. We 
know that intemperance in any direction is simply 
excess in right things ; and we may say that there is 
some justification in the temperament and constitution. 
Some have a love of drinking. Some have a fiery 
nerve which tempts them to drink. A man may be 
a glutton, but in becoming one he is in the line of the 
indulgence of normal passions. Lusts, even, may plead 
that they are but the unregulated exercise of great pas- 
sions which were implanted for wise purposes by the 



PROFANE SWEARING, 229 

Creator in the constitution of man. But for profanity 
there is no such palliation. It does not belong to any 
great constitutional want. It is a perversion of all that 
is most sacred, highest, and most honorable. It is 
without the excuse of underlying temptation. There 
is no faculty of swearing implanted in the human mind. 
There is no natural tendency that way. It is wanton, 
perverse, and without the excuse which attends many 
of the vices of human nature. 

I am sorry to say that women swear. To what ex- 
tent the swearing of women prevails in society I do 
not undertake to say ; but that there are many who are 
cultured, and who stand in positions of some eminence, 
that swear, I do know. And that there is a certain 
tendency in that direction, I do know. While I claim 
that in the upward scale woman has a right to be the 
equal of man in everything that is true and pure and 
noble and good and virtuous, I do say, for the sake of 
the sanctity of the name of woman, that she has no 
right to seek an equality with man in the things that 
are vulgar and base and degrading. Woman enshrines, 
to our thought, that which is the sweetest, the purest, 
and the most attractive. In her we look for patience 
in goodness and for disinterested kindness ; in her we 
believe God has created a soul very fruitful in delica- 
cies and in all beauteous refinement. These qualities 
belong to the constitution of woman more essentially 
than to the rugged constitution of man. Man battles 
with physical things, and has sturdier physical attain- 
ments. Woman is more in communion with the in- 
visible, with sentiment, with worship, and with God. 
We are shocked, therefore, and shocked with good 



230 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

reason and beyond measure, when we hear women 
take the name of the Lord Jesus Christ on their lips 
with irreverence. A woman swearing ! a wife ! a 
mother ! How dare she touch her child ! How dare 
she ask for a blessing of God ! It is a perversion 
of the sex. It is an outrage upon all who have re- 
vered the purity and dignity and nobleness of woman- 
hood. 

But there are many who say, " I swear without think- 
ing." How far down has a man gone, when you come 
to consider what profane swearing is, who can make 
such an excuse as this in justification of himself ? If 
a man says, " I am an honest man ; all my transactions 
in life have been scrupulously honest in the main, but 
on one occasion, when I was pressed to the uttermost, 
I did consent, though not without a struggle, to mis- 
appropriate funds," even for that he is condemned. 
But suppose a man should say, " Well, I did pervert 
trust funds, — that is so ; but really I did it without 
thinking." When a man has got so that he does not 
know whether he is stealing or not, is he justifiable ? 
Suppose a man who is in the habit of going into all kinds 
of company, and using the most outrageously obscene 
language, should, on being complained of to the police 
and thrust out of doors, say, " Did I talk so ? I am 
getting so that I do not know when I am talking 
decently and when I am not." Would that be a 
proper excuse ? And yet, when men are checked and 
rebuked for profanity, they say, as if that were an 
excuse, " Eeally, we did it without thinking." Ah, 
then, have you sunk so low as that? 

Children of Christian parents, taught to lift your 



PROFANE SWEARING. 231 

faces when you scarcely knew what it meant, and say, 
" Our Father who art in heaven/' and now blacken that 
name with oaths, and not know it ! Invoking from 
heaven the terrors of Divine justice which overhang the 
guilt of wicked men, and rearing up the ghastly forms 
of penalty from beneath ; doing it daily in conversation, 
and having a conscience so insensitive and so wanting 
in delicacy that you say, " I do it without thinking " ! 
I know you will agree with me that this is not a valid 
excuse for any man ; nay, it is self-condemnation. 

Men say, " Swearing is a bad habit, I admit ; but I 
have insensibly fallen into it from the influence of com- 
pany, or rather from a want of reflection, and it has 
become so fastened on me that I cannot cure myself of 
it." I beg your pardon. No man can cure himself of 
a bad habit who does not want to ; but when you go 
into the house of God, when you go among Christian 
men, when you are where clergymen are present, you do 
not swear. If you begin to, you check yourself. When 
you go into a waiting-room that is full of ladies, you do 
not swear. You can restrain yourself from swearing 
when there is a motive for it. You would be ashamed 
to swear in the presence of refined and cultivated 
women. If you say that you cannot remedy it, I say 
that you can ; for you do sometimes. You show that 
you can control yourself under such circumstances as I 
have mentioned ; and if you can under such circum- 
stances, then you can under other circumstances. What 
you lack is the will to do it. What you want is moral 
feeling. If you had a sense of the enormity of the evil, 
if you saw it as it is, you could easily break it off. I 
do not say that men of violent passions are not some- 



232 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

times provoked to the utterance of explosive interjec- 
tions ; but I say that the temptation to profane swear- 
ing can be restrained as easily as other more violent 
temptations. 

Here let me say that the whole crowd of coward's 
oaths come under the same general designation. They 
are not so injurious as profane oaths, but they lead to 
the same injuries. When a man says, "Darn it," he 
means " Damn it," though he does not want to say so. 
When a man says, "By Jupiter," he means "By the 
Highest, by the Supreme." These little coward's oaths 
are feeders to profane oaths. They lead a man along 
towards the worst kinds of swearing. They are, at any 
rate, disfigurements to good, pure conversation. They 
are warts on a man's language. They add nothing to 
what he says, but detract much from it. 

Therefore I say that these petty oaths, with which 
young persons' mouths are filled, are vain and foolish in 
this, that they prepare the way for those greater and 
more audacious forms of swearing of which I have been 
speaking. 

Men say, " I know that in a sense swearing is bad ; 
but then, some of the best of men that I ever knew in 
my life swear. General So-and-so, — he was the very 
soul of honor, and yet he would let oaths fly like bul- 
lets in battle. Admiral So-and-so used to swear occa- 
sionally." It was none the less one of the greatest of 
faults because these men had excellences. I have seen 
men who carried great wens on their cheek and neck, 
and yet their feet were sound, and they had good 
digestion, and their arms and hands were all right ; but 
I never saw anybody that undertook to get a wen on 



PROFANE SWEARING. 233 

him because he saw wens on other men who were all 
right in every other respect. 

Here is a lady of extreme beauty and delicacy of 
thought and sweetness of expression ; the very blue of 
heaven melts in her eye ; but she has a cancer on her 
breast. Is she any better for that ? People do not 
say, " That splendid creature has a cancer ; let us have 
one." Men do not usually reason in that way. It is 
only in respect to moral deformities that we ignore 
common-sense. Wickedness ignores common-sense all 
through. 

Not to protract this matter longer, let me make an 
appeal to you. Can the habit of insulting sacred 
things, — can the habit of doing violence to the highest 
obligations which a man can have, so that they are tar- 
nished and disfigured and degraded, — can the habit of 
perverting the name of God so that it does not mean 
purity nor truth nor honor nor sanctity nor morality 
nor love, and so that it does not, like sweet music, 
draw us heavenward, but becomes, rather, a name that 
men associate with vulgar passions and coarse thoughts 
and base uses, — can such a habit as this be allowed ? 

Young man, will you ever swear again ? Yes ; take 
one oath more, and that not a profane one ! Now, in 
the house of God, with uplifted heart and hands vow 
before God that with his help you will never soil your 
lips again with profanity. 

Many of you have been thinking about having more 
virtues. You have thought that you would reform ; 
but you have not known where to begin. Is not this a 
good place for a beginning ? You have been loose- 
lipped and foul-mouthed. Vow, first, " I will never 



234 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

again take God's name in vain." And then join 
another vow to that. Say, " I will never again be 
guilty of foul expressions. My lips shall be clean. I 
will never say anything that I would be ashamed to 
say in the presence of my mother or of my sister or of 
my wife, or that I would have been ashamed to say in 
her presence before she was my wife." Do you not 
think that the vow taken and registered, " I will swear 
no more, and I will utter no more vileness under any 
circumstances," would be a good vow to begin reforma- 
tion with ? 

Well, if you take these steps to break off the vice 
of profanity, why should you not make them simply 
the first steps of a more entire reformation ? Why 
stop on the threshold ? Is it not time that you should 
begin the higher manhood for which you were con- 
secrated in the cradle ? 

Many of you mean to be Christians. Why is it not 
the time to become Christians now ? Is not the tran- 
sition most noble, from swearing by the Lord Jesus 
Christ to lifting up holy hands and swearing fealty to 
him? You who have abused the name of Jehovah 
and its associations, is it not time for you to come 
reverently and call on the name of Jehovah ? Is it 
not time for many of you, if you mean to live Chris- 
tian lives, to begin those lives ? And having begun 
to examine and correct your habits, do as the farmer 
does, who goes over his farm in the spring to look 
at his fences and repair them, putting on a rail where 
it has been thrown down, straightening up a post 
where it stands awry, replacing a board that has been 
broken down by the snow, and not stopping till the 



PKOFANE SWEARING. 235 

whole work is thoroughly done. When you begin 
the work of reformation, do not stop with one single 
thing. Many persons begin to reform, and their refor- 
mation is good as far as it goes ; but they do not reform 
enough. That is as if a man should put one part of 
his fence up and leave the other down. 

Begin with this more obvious fault, because men see 
it, and therefore are more affected by it. Help one 
another by your example. Swear no more. Say no 
more foul and disallowable things. And begin to pray. 
Commence with the resolution that by the help of God 
you will allow no known duty to pass unfulfilled. 
Accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your charter and rule 
and law and by-law of life ; and begin, according to 
your best light, the Christian life. God will help you, 
— the God of your father. 





X. 

VULGABITY. 

"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?" — Mark viii. 36. 

*OW much worldly wisdom there is in the 
heavenly Book ! " Wherewithal shall a 
young man cleanse his way ? " asks the 
Psalmist; and answers clearly enough, 
" By taking heed thereto, according to thy word." If 
a man will only follow that advice, he cannot go far 
astray. What I in getting on in the world ? Yes ; for 
getting on in the world depends more on moral causes 
than men are apt to think. 

Every young man who starts out with fine oppor- 
tunities and high hopes, or with the energy of deter- 
mination fired high and the will to conquer success, 
looks forward to the time when he shall have amassed 
money, made himself a name, acquired influence, and 
raised himself above the vulgar herd of scrabblers in 
the dust below. Ah, but beware ! You may win all 
the success, you dream of, and yet be as vulgar as the 
lowest. 

There is a danger here that young men need to be 
warned against, — a distinction not merely of words, 
but of things. Vulgarity is a fault w^hich we readily see 



VULGARITY. 237 

when it stands out in all grossness, as in the indecent, 
the brutal, the purse-proud, the mocker of infirm per- 
sons, the cruel, — all these every one knows and admits 
to be vulgar. Why ? "What is the essence of vulgarity ? 
These are extreme cases, but they involve principles 
which apply also to others, less markedly but not less 
really vulgar. 

How then can we know what would be vulgar under 
certain circumstances ? For want of a safer guide, it 
is perhaps well enough to judge by custom ; but a true 
man is one who is independent of all customs and 
rules, having risen so high that he can interpret what 
is right and noble and manly and refined, by his own 
intuition. It is very desirable that one should be able 
to carry into life with him an inward standard of 
what is refined and noble, or what is vulgar and ig- 
noble, which he can apply to himself. And let this 
be it : — 

Whenever you act from your animal and passional 
nature — your lower faculties — under circumstances 
which require that you should act upon a higher plane, 
you are acting with vulgarity. 

Apply this to the occupations and conditions of men 
in life. A man is not vulgar because his occupation is 
low ; and yet we are apt to speak of men in that way. 
To be sure, the term vulgar does not necessarily imply 
a moral reproach. We speak of " vulgar fractions," 
meaning merely common or ordinary fractions; we 
speak of many things as being vulgar or common in 
a general way, without meaning to cast moral reproach 
upon them. But the vulgarity which implies boorish- 
ness, offensiveness to taste, lowness of mind, baseness, 



238 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

or meanness, is a term too loosely applied by men to 
their fellows. For instance, there is an impression in 
society that many persons are to be called vulgar simply 
because they do not dress well, because they are obliged 
to labor for a living, because their occupation is itself 
very humble, menial even. It is therefore of impor- 
tance that we should discriminate as to words in such 
matters as these. 

A man's occupation is not vulgar simply because it 
is coarse, because it is low, or because it is unremu- 
nerative. A man's business is not vulgar if it be right 
in itself, though it serve the lowest and the poorest 
wants of society. If an occupation is pursued with 
integrity; if the man make it the medium through 
which he shows himself truthful, faithful, honest, up- 
right ; if he carry into it the spirit of true manhood, — 
it is not vulgar. There is no occupation that is low or 
menial merely from the fact that it serves men's wants. 
It is quite possible for one to stand in relations of 
service, or even servitude, to his fellow-men, and yet 
not be menial. All subordinate positions are to be 
accepted in the providence of God, not as humbling 
us, even when we are obliged to go down from higher 
positions to them. And whatever occupation being 
useful to men is accepted in this spirit and is filled 
with fidelity and earnestness and true manliness, is a 
respectable one. It cannot be called vulgar, in the 
offensive sense of that term. 

It may be that a man's raiment is coarse. It ought 
to be so, to be adapted to coarse occupations. It may 
be that long continuance in humble pursuits renders a 
man's habits less refined and less brilliant. His con- 



VULGARITY. 239 

versation, as we should naturally suppose it would, 
may hover around the subjects with which he is most 
conversant, and follow the line of his own pursuits. 
But offensive vulgarity does not attach to external con- 
ditions. It belongs to internal moral states. Thou- 
sands of times we have seen, and we shall see in in- 
creasing numbers as intelligence spreads among the 
common people, that the noblest dispositions and the 
noblest powers may lie hid in common occupations. It 
is an act of vulgarity for a man to regard common work 
and plain workmen as vulgar. It is vulgar, because 
mean, not to be able to estimate manliness wherever we 
find it, and however rude its exterior may be. Wher- 
ever you find patience, fidelity, honor, kindness, truth, 
there you find respectability, though it be in the quarry, 
though it be in the colliery, though it may be in the 
lowest places of human industry. But wherever you 
find guises and pretenses and sweet insincerities and 
shuffling lies and all manner of unmanly glozings, there 
you find vulgarity, no matter how gorgeous the apparel 
and how gilded the apartment. Yet even in the lowest 
circumstances, if a man does not rise to the privilege of 
his condition, — if he shows himself careless of the fact 
that he is a child of immortality, — if he carries himself 
without a consciousness that he is a man, simply be- 
cause he is poor, and his occupation is poor and unre- 
munerative, — that is vulgar in him. 

All men are of God, and all men to God belong ; and 
all men have a right to the port and dignity of sons of 
God. Because one is in menial conditions of life, it does 
not become him to forget this, or to carry himself less 
royally than a king's son should. 



240 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

The royal families of Europe are accustomed to send 
their children out to prepare them for their destiny. 
One goes into the army, and another into the navy. "We 
have lately been entertaining the Duke Alexis. He is 
an officer of the imperial Eussian navy ; but he is not 
less every inch an emperor's son in his own thought 
because he wears the garb of a seaman, or because he 
serves in the navy upon the sea. 

God's sons are scattered up and down throughout 
the earth ; and because he has put some higher and some 
lower, and some lower still, it is not for them to forget 
that, whatever their places may be, however low may 
be their station, they are the sons of God. This sense 
of the nobility of character ; this consciousness of what 
man is, of himself, by virtue of what he has in connec- 
tion with God ; this feeling that 

" A man 's a man for a' that,"* — 

ought to be strong in every heart. When a man is in 
low circumstances and coarse apparel, if he himself 
shrinks back and is ashamed of it, and apologizes, and 
seems to be annoyed, it unmans him and ruins him. 
He lacks self-respect, and therefore is vulgar. He is 
so, not because he is poor outwardly, but because he 
is poor inwardly. 

On the other hand, all compliance with wicked cus- 
toms in society, all prosperity founded upon the barter 
of moral principle, all respectability which we gain 
by an exchange of our moral sense for our worldly good, 
— all this is vulgar. For you cannot so dress up a viola- 
tion of moral principle as to make it other than vulgar. 
You cannot express a mean sentiment in such poetic 



VULGARITY. 241 

and glowing language that it will not still be mean. 
You cannot, with flowing measures, with the music of 
numbers, or with the gorgeousness of rhetoric, express 
salacious thoughts and base desires and not have them 
infernal, any more than you can put manly and glowing 
and noble sentiments in language so simple and plain 
that they will not be respectable, — yea, royal. 

Wherefore, if it please God to call you to your life s 
duties in spheres that are externally humble, make it 
up inside. And, on the other hand, beware of feeling 
that your success in life depends upon your securing 
external position where you are obliged to do it by 
mere connivance, by the sacrifice of your own self- 
respect, by pretending to believe what you do not be- 
lieve, by pretending to be what you are not, by any 
of those sinister and indirect ways by which you put 
your higher nature underneath the feet of your lower 
nature. Your house may be large, your saloons may be 
gilded, but that does not make essential meanness no- 
ble. A man may stand at the top of society, and yet 
be at the bottom of it. As many and many a man wears 
grand apparel who is a culprit ; as many and many a 
man walks among the best, and carries the worst dis- 
position ; so a man may seem to be in society respecta- 
ble and reputable and excellent, and yet be vulgar, as 
God sees him. He who lives by mean dispositions and 
by mean thoughts and by base compliances and by es- 
sentially animal and low ways, cannot be so covered up 
and varnished with external prosperity that he is not 
essentially vulgar. 

This is true, also, in respect to all pleasures. I have 
said in your hearing that the spirit of Christianity is joy. 



242 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

It looks toward joy. The production of joy requires 
suffering ; so that on its way toward its ideal it carries 
suffering with it : but the genius of Christianity is so 
to ripen and raise men that they shall be susceptible 
of perpetual enjoyment; so to harmonize them as to 
accord them with themselves. Therefore, by pleas- 
ure we do not imply illicitness. All pleasures which do 
not imply degradation, grossness, animalism, are per- 
missible by religion. I bid you beware, however, of all 
pleasures that have become refined simply because their 
insignia are refined. Beware of supposing that pleasures 
are any less vulgar in silk and satin than they would 
be in sackcloth. There are many dens of infamy into 
w T hich men go where they nuzzle in the mud. Other 
men, looking in and seeing them wallowing in animal- 
ism, are shocked at the vulgarity of such pleasure. It 
is shocking, it is vulgar ; and yet, straightway these 
more refined lookers-on will go to a bower of pleasure 
where the imagination and fancy and sense of beauty 
have been called in, and where everything is exquisite 
and gilded, to pursue precisely the same courses and to 
sacrifice to the same vulgar lust, to the same base pas- 
sions. It is not considered vulgar, because of the em- 
bellishments of the externality ; but the vulgarity lies 
in the thing itself, and not in its externals. 

Do you not suppose that he who lies most wittily, but 
lies, is vulgar, — just as vulgar as he that lies blunder- 
ingly and coarsely ? The vulgarity is in the meanness 
and wickedness of the lie itself, not in the style of its 
putting forth. 

From this, also, w^e see that vulgarity of language is 
not necessarily rudeness nor coarseness of expression, 



VULGARITY. 243 

because there are a great many honest souls who ex- 
press very noble sentiments rudely and coarsely ; but 
the feeling or the sentiment redeems the language. A 
great heart, rising with the tide of a great experience, 
may be rough or unrefined, but it cannot be vulgar. 

On the other hand, no language can redeem a mean 
feeling or a mean experience. It is what language is 
used for, it is the contents of the language, that deter- 
mines whether it is vulgar or not. The honest, the 
pure, the true, though they be in a rough garb, speak 
right, substantially, whatever they speak, if they mean 
right. Eefined language sometimes carries a vulgar 
meaning which it does not quite like to express clearly ; 
it throws the shadow of an evil thought, and shrinks back 
from making plain the substance of that thought ; the 
language of much of our literature is full of fiery and 
pointed suggestions, rather than of expressed meanings ; 
— all this dexterous devil-language is vulgar. If Satan 
be clothed like an angel of light, and every feather in 
his wing be of silver or of gold, he is the Devil inside, 
notwithstanding. And no matter what poetry is, no 
matter what literature is, no matter how sweet the 
beautiful and rounded sentences are, — What do they 
carry? — that is the question. What is in them? 
What do they mean ? Whence do they come ? Where 
do they touch ? That is what determines their charac- 
ter. Noble thoughts in noble language, of course, are 
best. Noble thoughts on noble errands, with noble 
conveyances, — - these are noble indeed ; but beware of 
supposing that a thing is not ignominious and vulgar 
simply because it is polished, simply because in ex- 
pression it is refined. Learn to discriminate between 



244 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

the vehicle and the thing conveyed. Even in a friendly- 
ship the cargo may be " contraband of war." 

In society there be many persons who are regarded 
as stupid and vulgar simply because they are non-com- 
plying. There may be a rigidity that, is not wise. It 
is not necessary that honesty should be blunt, or that 
truth should be unpleasantly violent in expression. 
And yet, often men think that the quiet and simple 
adhesion of a man to manliness and sincerity in society 
marks, comparatively speaking, a low condition ; where- 
as those who have a pliant tongue and who are fertile 
of compliments, full of gilded insincerities, rich in 
sweet and pleasant speeches meaning nothing, making 
their way by smiles and favor for their own purposes, 
are often considered the masters of society. Their dex- 
terity, the flash of their imagination, their ten thousand 
deft and apt ways, make them attractive ; but, after all, 
their hearts may be as bitter as gall. They may be as 
full of selfishness and rancorous passions as it is possi- 
ble for a man to be. And not only no external beauty, 
but no dexterity can save them from the charge of vul- 
garity. 

To act from your lower nature instead of your higher 
is vulgar. To act as an animal while you are a man is 
vulgar. Always and everywhere you are bound to act 
with all the feelings and with all the carriage of a son 
of God. 

There is an opportunity in social life for studying 
this matter of vulgarity. All social enjoyments which 
sacrifice themselves to the animal are vulgar ; not on 
account of their being joyful, not because they are bois- 
terous, not because there is a little more or a little less 



VULGARITY. 245 

of animal spirits, not because there is a little more or a 
little less noise. These things may be of some impor- 
tance, but not very much. It is where men go steadily 
down, as they drink, toward debauch, or as they sport 
in the direction of the lower passions and appetites, 
that they are accursed. They are vulgar. They are 
base. 

There is a great deai of vulgarity in society by reason 
of arrogance and pride, shown in the way that we treat 
those who are below us in mental gifts. A true man, 
whom God has enlightened and blessed with strength 
of mind any knowledge, becomes a benefactor to his 
kind. He is bound to be the father of those who are 
less than he. He is to be their guide. He is to be 
their patron. He is to look upon those whom he 
regards his inferiors as in some sense his wards. He 
is to bestow kindness on them. He is the almoner of 
God's bounty to them. We are lent gifts that we may 
by means of them bless those who are around about us. 
And for a man to take these bestowals of God upon 
him, and with them to treat those who are below him 
with contempt and neglect, is vulgarity. 

There are a great many vulgar men who do not know 
that they are vulgar. There are a great many men who 
hold their heads high, and who are without and con- 
sciousness that they ever did any injustice to their 
fellows, but who are in the highest degree unjust. 
Why, their very shadow is an injustice ! The curl of 
their lip is like the piercing of a sword. They organize 
their unfriendliness. They are unfraternal towards those 
who are God's children as well as they are. A man 
who carries himself with this loftiness, and has no 



246 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

sympathy for others, and does not care for those who 
are below him, and whose kindness is confined to those 
who belong to his own household, is a vulgar man. 
There is much vulgarity that is meanness in the treat- 
ment of those who are inferior in the relations of life. 

One man serves another, but he does not serve him 
altogether. No man should serve another so as to give up 
his own identity and personality and self-respect. The 
man who serves me is in many respects my benefactor. 
A man who can make me happier and better has an 
advantage over me. In love there is no pay but love. 
In a service of love there is no equivalent but a 
service of love. He who serves me is at once brought 
near to my level by the fact that God has put it into 
his power to be my helper. And if there is any man 
who, because he pays persons wages, because they serve 
his daily wants, because they work in his kitchen, in 
his shop, or on his farm, looks down upon them, and 
treats them as if they were underneath him, and is 
neglectful of them and unsympathetic toward them, he 
is essentially vulgar. It makes no difference what his 
other qualities are, he is vulgar in that direction. I am 
afraid we are all vulgar once in a while ! 

Neglect of the mutual deference which is due in 
society, and especially in the household, is the occasion 
of a great deal of vulgarity. Our children are emanci- 
pated early in American society. This neglect belongs 
to our time. It belongs to our customs. It belongs to 
the stimulating developments which bring people for- 
ward so soon in this land. It belongs also, I think, 
to a certain vagrancy which we derive from our no- 
tions of civil liberty. I think there is less respect paid 



VULGARITY. 247 

to old age among us than there used to be, and less 
than there is still in old countries. There is less def- 
erence paid by children to parents. I do not think 
children love their parents less, but certainly they do 
not honor them so much. If my observation serves 
me, there is not much honor in our conventional cus- 
toms. There is a lack of politeness and kindness be- 
tween brothers and sisters in the household. There is 
a want of that honoring of men, and especially of those 
that are of the household of faith. There is a want of 
that love which the Scriptures enjoin. And the lack of 
these things is not simply being unmannered ; it is being- 
vulgar, where no man can afford to be vulgar. 

When I see a young whipster treat with contempt 
or neglect an old man who is infirm and clad in a poor 
garb, not offering to render him any service, and not 
caring what becomes of him, I do not care who his 
father is, that boy is vulgar. When I see a young man 
in the street cars, and there comes in a poorly clad 
woman who has suffered, and who seems to have been 
privileged to suffer, looking wearily about for a seat, 
and I see him, young, vigorous, happy, respectable, 
bearing an honored name, sit still and let her stand, I 
say that he is vulgar. 

There are a thousand of these little observances of 
life which are supposed to be of not much importance, 
and which perhaps do weigh but little as compared 
with great heroic deeds ; but let me tell you that a life 
of heroism is made up of a multitude of minor things, 
and that no man is likely to be a hero who has not 
practiced himself in ten thousand little self-denials and 
duties. Heroisms are wrought out in men. They 



248 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

never come extemporized for the occasion. You never 
see them except where they have been shaped and 
prepared. And all these little observances and cus- 
toms are as so many drops of blood that circulate 
in the household and move through the veins of 
society. 

I am sorry to see how much fraternal kindness has 
died out from the intercourse of men in the world. I 
am sorry to see how we meet men without a recog- 
nition, where "The Lord be with you/' was the 
Oriental salutation. I am sorry to see how we go 
into a man's store as into a barn, and think no more 
of the man than of a brute, saying, " Have you this ? " 
or " Have you that ? " and taking it and going our 
way. 

I was impressed with the courtesy which I saw 
abroad on the part of those who stood to serve their 
customers, and as they came in bowed and interchanged 
some courtesy with them. How much better it would 
be if business among us was conducted more on the 
plan of courtesy and the interchange of kindly feelings 
than it now often is ! Scarcely any one who has much 
dealing with men, when his attention is directed to 
this matter, can help charging himself with vulgarity. 
It is not so much that your manners are coarse, as 
that you lack kindness, as that you lack the sentiment 
of honoring men, as that you lack deference and rev- 
erence. 

We often hear of the vulgarity of riches. There is 
much vulgarity connected with riches, although there 
is not a little also connected with poverty. Where 
riches are the sign of industry, frugality, skill, long 



VULGARITY. 249 

patience ; where they carry with them the testimony of 
honesty and honor, — they are a thing which no man 
should be ashamed of. I am tired of hearing persons 
cast up reproaches to men simply because they are 
rich, as if they were of course to be bombarded. In 
this country there is comparatively little of riches 
amassed. Comparatively speaking, taking the country 
through, it may be said that no man amasses riches 
which stay with him who does not do it by the exer- 
cise of sterling qualities. It is not an easy thing for 
a man nowadays to become rich. It requires a great 
deal of forethought, power of control, application, good 
sense, and good judgment, long continued. It requires 
honesty and honor, and the confidence of men. These 
things amass wealth. I do not believe that riches are 
better gained or better kept in any other way than 
through the instrumentality of the honest good qualities 
of manhood. 

Therefore I am one of those who love to see men 
grow rich, when I see that their riches are the expo- 
nents of good qualities. But when a man's wealth 
inspires conceit and arrogance and selfishness ; when a 
man, for no reason except that he is rich, is offensively 
arrogant, — then he is vulgar. When riches, instead of 
making men longer armed and more open-handed, shut 
up their hand and shorten their arm, and make them 
very selfish and narrow, then their riches make them 
vulgar. 

Where riches inspire vanity, and a man is, as it is 
said, purse-proud, and through ostentation he brightens 
in men's approbation, as he supposes, but in reality 
darkens in their contempt, he is vulgar. You may live 



250 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

in a very humble house, and still be possessed of great 
riches, and still be honored of all men. 

Mr. Dowse, of Cambridge, never was ashamed to be 
a tanner and currier. I believe he never moved out of 
the humble cottage where he began his career. He 
never was ashamed of his skins. He amassed his prop- 
erty quietly, filled his house with books, and collected 
rare works of art, exercising superior taste in selection. 
And he lived in that town a gentleman and a true 
man. It is said that a portion of the students of the 
neighboring University insulted him very grossly on 
account of his trade, and that in consequence he with- 
held from the institution a munificent gift which it was 
his purpose to bestow upon it. One thing is certain, 
that the whole library, which he intended to leave to 
the University, was presented to the Boston Historical 
Society, with some property besides. The men who 
insulted him were vulgar, although they were students 
of the University, and no matter if they were sons of 
the first families in the land. 

He who despises riches gained by honorable courses 
is vulgar ; but he who, having riches, however they may 
have been gained, is impertinent and domineering and 
conceited and unmanly, is vulgar. 

On the other hand, riches cannot cover up vulgarity. 
Men who are benefactors ; men who build up society ; 
men who carry streams of bounty into the towns or 
villages where they dwell, and make them blossom as 
gardens of the Lord ; men who associate their names 
with foundations that go on carrying with them bless- 
ings to the lowest generations ; men who think not so 
much of what money shall make them to be as of what 



VULGAEITY. 251 

they shall be able to create by money for their country 
and for their kind, — these are noble men. 

A multitude of faults and failings do not detract 
from the grandeur of such natures. He who lives in 
the lower part of his disposition lives habitually in 
vulgarities. He who lives in pride and selfishness 
and envy and jealousy ; he who makes these the in- 
strument of his daily life ; he who purveys by them, 
and attacks or defends himself by them ; he who makes 
the most use of the lower passions and propensities 
of his disposition, > — is vulgar. But he who dwells in 
noble generosities — in faith and hope and love and 
royal thoughts — is noble. 

There is a great deal of religious vulgarity. If I were 
to put out upon my house the sign, " The only refined 
Family on this Street," I should not exactly have the 
good-will of every other family. If I should declare 
that I was the most gentlemanly man in our ward, be- 
cause I had received the gift of refinement in a straight 
line clear back to the days of the Apostles, it would not 
help me one single whit, not even if I should historically 
prove it. If I were to strut before my fellow-men in 
any way by self-assertion and by assuming superiority 
over them, I should be set down at once as vulgar ; and 
I should be vulgar. 

You cannot do that in business. You cannot do it 
in social life. Eeligion is the only place where you 
can do it, and be respectable. Sects with feathers that 
never grew in them, with peacocks' tails and all sorts 
of tinsel-work on them, are forever setting forth their 
own merits and declaring their own excellences, and de- 
nouncing those who are different from them. But that 



252 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN, 

which would turn a gentleman out of society cannot 
make a priest or a minister admirable. A man who 
enormously overpraises himself and depreciates others 
is vulgar ; and any religion which lacks justice and 
humility and moderation is vulgar. There is a great 
deal of vulgarity, not in religion itself, but in the prac- 
tice of it among men. Eeligion " suffereth long and is 
kind" ; it " envieth not" ; it " vaunteth not itself" ; it 
" is not puffed up " ; it " doth not behave itself unseem- 
ly " ; it " seeketh not its own " ; it " is not easily pro- 
voked"; it "thinketh no evil"; it "rejoiceth not in 
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth"; it"beareth all 
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth 
all things." But the vulgar pretentiousness of sects, 
their arrogance and pugnacity, their irritations, their 
disavowings and depreciations and cordial hatings one 
of another, — these are odious before God as they are 
delightful before the Devil. 

Before one enters, therefore, upon any such ways as 
these, it might be well for him to ask whether such 
vulgarity is inspired of the Holy Ghost; whether it 
has example or precedent or approval either in the 
spirit or letter of the New Testament. 

Speaking of religion and religious vulgarity, let me 
ask whether religion is not a thing personal, of neces- 
sity; whether it does not mean the practice of the 
noblest manhood, — such a manhood as Christ was the 
pattern of; whether it is not the supreme idea of the 
New Testament that a man should be fashioned, not by 
the elements of his lower manhood, but by those 
glorious elements which went to make the Son of God 
the Saviour of the world ; whether, when we ask peo- 



VULGARITY. 253 

pie to become Christians, or preach the duty of a relig- 
ious life, we are asking them to be anything other than 
that which is noble. And if true manhood is religion ; 
if a more glorious moral sense, if an illuminated imagi- 
nation, if a heart full of gentleness and faith, if that 
which springs from the better part of a man's nature 
and draws him in love toward God and angels and his 
fellow-men, if a more royal pattern of life than any- 
thing which prevails in the world, is religion, — then let 
me ask you, Is not the absence of religion vulgarity ? 
Is it not baseness ? Can a man fall below his own 
ideal, can a man contentedly live below what he recog- 
nizes as the truest manhood, can a man habitually per- 
mit and tolerate and encourage that which is beneath 
what he knows to be his true development, and not 
charge himself with moral vulgarity ? 

My friends, we have come to the end of another year; 
and may it not be an exercise of profit, and one full of 
wisdom, for you to review, in lines of meditation, the 
way in which you have lived during the past twelve 
months ? What company have you kept ? How have 
you lived in your household, in your business, in your 
pleasures, in your relations to the State, and in religion ? 
Think back. Probe your conduct. Ask yourself, "Have 
I lived vulgarly ? " Ask yourself, " Have I, on the 
whole, during the year that is past, used the selfish, the 
vain, the proud, the worldly part of my nature most, 
or the higher part ? " Ask yourself, " Have I been in 
association and sympathy with that which is divine, or 
with that which is human and animal ? Have I leaned 
toward the higher or the lower side of manhood ? " 

Look forward into the year that is to come. Have 
12 J 



254 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

you no aspiration ? Do you pierce the year with no 
new hopes ? Have you no path that you lay for the 
days that are to come ? Do you propose to move on 
with the same indifference that you have manifested 
hitherto ? Would it not be worth your while, as the 
year dies out, to set over against you an ideal of another 
year, to be builded, as the city of God is builded, of 
precious stones ? 

"What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul I" 

Can it be possible that you should go on for the year 
to come perfectly indifferent of the course and career of 
sin to which you are giving yourself ? Is it possible 
that during the year to come you shall take of the 
bounties of God, — the light of the sun, the glory of 
the summer, the fruit of the field, the joy of the house- 
hold, — merely to minister to a body which refuses any 
allegiance to him and refuses to serve him ? Can you, 
for the year to come, know of that love of Christ which 
glows, like the sun, for every nation on the globe, — can 
you know of that declaration of Divine beneficence and 
mercy which hangs over your head, and have no 
thought and no heart-beat of gratitude ? Can it be 
possible that you shall live for the year to come within 
the sound of the joys that belong to the heavenly 
sphere, knowing that they are not far from you, and 
despise or neglect them all ? Is it becoming ? Is it 
manly ? Is it honorable ? Is it right ? Or, taking it 
even on a lower ground, is it sensible ? Or, taking it 
still lower, is it your interest ? I appeal to you, not 
through your pride, nor through any form of ignoble 



VULGARITY. 255 

excitement. I appeal to your manliness, to your honor, 
to your conscience. I appeal to all that which is best 
and truest and noblest in you. Is it right for you to 
live upon the love of God, as you are living, and give 
him not one thought of love in return ? Is it right for 
you to be the bay into which rivers do empty, and give 
nothing back, — not even so much as a thin vapor ? 
Is it right for you to live, and to be surrounded and 
swept down the course of time by the sweet winds of 
God's bounty, and you requite him with no thought or 
service ? 

To live a Christian life is to live honorably ; but to 
live a sinful life is to live vulgarly, meanly, contempt- 
ibly. And I beseech you to remember that awful 
threat which is pronounced against those who despise 
Christ and dishonor God by disobedience, of whom it is 
said that they shall one day rise to shame and everlast- 
ing contempt. 





XI. 




HAPPINESS. 

"And he said tjnto them, Take heed, and beware of covet- 
ousness [of greediness] : for a man's life consisteth not in 
the abundance of the things which he possesseth." — luke 
xii. 15. 

say that one should live for his own 
greatest happiness is to have a right or a 
wrong impression, according to what is 
meant. If you take it in a very narrow 
and ordinary sense, there can be no greater wrong pro- 
nounced. If you take it in a large sense, it is the 
assertion of a very important truth. If by " seeking 
our greatest happiness " we mean present self-indul- 
gence, pungent physical pleasures, low forms of enjoy- 
ment, partial, earthly, without the element of reflection, 
without continuity, without spiritual harmony, — then 
to seek happiness as the chief end of our existence is 
a very foolish, a very base, and a very wicked thing. 
Pleasure, used in a strict sense, signifies the gratifica- 
tion of the senses in some way ; and to live for pleasure 
in that sense is indeed base. But if one regards hap- 
piness as the product of the right action of his whole 
nature ; if the truest happiness implies the development, 
the education, of the social and the spiritual, as well 



HAPHNESS. 257 

as the physical elements of our being ; if it includes 
benevolence, and takes on the here and the hereafter as 
well ; if, in other words, our conception of happiness is 
one which requires the development of our entire 
nature for time and for eternity, — then to say that a 
man should seek his own greatest happiness is to 
declare a good and a noble thing. It is right to live 
for one's greatest happiness if he have a true inter- 
pretation of what that is. Not only is it right, but it 
is a duty. 

Men may be said to be set up in business in this 
world. The business of happiness is the pursuit to 
which they are called. Every faculty, acting normally, 
has an appropriate remuneration. All right action has 
peace, or refreshment, or a low degree of satisfaction ; 
or, mounting still higher, pleasure, activity, happiness, 
and sometimes even ecstasy. The ordinary forms of 
satisfaction, however, are the most likely to endure, and 
are the most wholesome. But the business of life is so 
to live that, your nature being active, there shall be a 
response in appropriate degrees of satisfaction, that 
being the test and evidence of right action and of a 
right condition. 

Since, then, we are set up in business in this world 
for the production of the greatest possible amount of 
happiness and for the creation of the noblest character, 
it becomes a matter of transcendent importance how 
we are getting along, how we are prospering, in that 
business. It is a matter of no small moment to examine 
critically what are the ways of doing business in this 
trade of happiness. It behooves us to inquire what are 
some of the elements on which a true and enduring and 



258 LECTUKES TO YOUNG MEN. 

harmonious happiness depends. A few of these I will 
point out. 

I. Good physical health, and such comfort as is 
implied by that term, are fundamental elements of 
happiness. Not that men who are morally developed 
may not triumph over their condition, and maintain a 
certain satisfaction and peace, even though they be 
sick; yet, taking men as a whole, it is evident that 
the Divine Providence intended health to be the 
substratum of happiness. The buoyancy and the 
resiliency of a high physical state of health are them- 
selves no small satisfaction ; and they underlie, for the 
most part, all other happiness. For although, as I have 
said, men may, in spite of bodily infirmities, maintain 
mental happiness, the cases are comparatively excep- 
tional. There is a heroism in it. It is not common. 
There are few who are equal to it. And he who sacri- 
fices health sacrifices the foundation on which he is to 
build everything else. We require health. It is a duty 
to preserve it. A man is not always sinful for having 
ill-health, because he may inherit constitutional liabili- 
ties to it. The sins of the parent are often visited on 
the children. The drunkard perpetuates his perverted 
taste, and the leprous man his leprosy, far down into 
the future. Men who are corrupters not only suffer 
themselves from their corruption, but entail suffer- 
ing upon their posterity. One may therefore inherit 
disease without fault of his own. A man may be 
blind or deaf or infirm or imbecile, and not be to 
blame. But where sickness is the result of one's own 
carelessness, or of his excessive indulgence, or of 
his disobedience to natural laws which are within his 



HAPPINESS. 259 

purview and knowledge, he is sinful. It is not only 
men's interest, if they are aiming at happiness, but it 
is their duty, to lay a broad foundation of health. The 
old idea that men should mortify and crucify the flesh, 
that they should by fastings and flagellations and 
watchings reduce the vigor of the body, as if the 
spiritual life would be in proportion to the diminution 
of the physical health, was long ago exploded, and has 
gone to the moles and bats, from whence it came. 

He, therefore, who in youth is squandering his blood 
and his stock of stamina, he who in the fever-beats of 
youth is burning up in a year or two that which should 
be the light of fifty years, is destroying himself in the 
very acorn or germ. 

II. Happiness, according to the laws of nature and 
of God, inheres in voluntary and pleasurable activities ; 
and activity increases happiness in proportion as it is 
diffusive. No man can be so happy as he who is en- 
gaged in a regular business that tasks the greatest part 
of his mind. I had almost said that it is the beau ideal 
of happiness for a man to be so busy that he does not 
know whether he is or is not happy ; that he has not 
time to think about himself at all. The man who rises 
early in the morning, joyful and happy, with an appe- 
tite for business as well as for breakfast ; who has a love 
for his work, and runs eagerly to it as a child to its 
play ; who finds himself refreshed by it in every part 
of his day, and rests after it as from a wholesome and 
delightful fatigue, — has one great and very essential 
element of happiness. How much do you suppose the 
stupid and slow-moving turtles know of happiness, who 
lazily crawl out of the slimy pool on a sunny day and 



260 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

lie unstirring for hours together ? They enjoy as much 
as turtles can enjoy. But how much is that ? So the 
grunting swine, lying in the corner of his pen, where 
the sun shines full on him, sleeping through the day, 
has his satisfaction. He is as happy as he is capable 
of being ; but how happy can a pig be ? Men who are 
of a phlegmatic temperament, and who live in absolute 
indolence, are measurably happy. Their ideal of hap- 
piness consists in being released from care and activity, 
and they experience a low degree of enjoyment; but 
how much happiness can belong to such a mood as they 
must necessarily be in ? They are in a state which is 
essentially torpid, and which has no resiliency. If the 
tow is corded and strained tight, and then struck, it 
gives forth a tone ; but if you strike the uncorded tow 
as it lies in a heap, you get no sound from it. The 
nerves of some men are, as it were, in a flaccid condi- 
tion, and they have no power to vibrate or respond to 
the touch. The human mind is in its best condition 
for producing enjoyment when it is intensely active. 
If occupation is congenial, it is all the better ; but even 
if it is not congenial, it is better than inactivity, for in- 
activity is a condition out of which comes all manner 
of dissatisfactions. Those who have, as a part of their 
beau ideal, the making of a fortune, the accumulation 
of an abundance which shall enable them by and by to 
do nothing, are building a fool's paradise, which they 
will not enjoy even if they ever get it. 

III. Variety, versatility, and ever-freshly changing 
employment require that every part of the mind should 
be productive in order to the fullest happiness. Man 
is made very largely. When he was laid out, he was 



HAPPINESS. 261 

not laid out as a garden with one bed and one sort of 
flowers. God meant that there should be in the garden 
of the human soul a great many beds and a great many 
kinds of flowers. There are some thirty or forty indi- 
vidual faculties in the human make-up, and the fullest 
enjoyment requires the consentaneous activity of them 
all. But to put on foot such a general cerebral energy 
as that would involve, would be exhausting. There- 
fore the action of men's minds changes, and in turn 
every part of them, if they are normally active, should 
be exercised between sleep and sleep. Each day there 
should be something of everything. 

If one half of the branches of a tree bear fruit and 
the other half are barren, it is a poor tree. A tree that 
bears every other year is better than none ; but it is 
only half as good as one that bears every year. A 
musical instrument only every other string of which 
emits sound, when struck, — what is that ? Even 
Beethoven could not bring out a symphony on an instru- 
ment where every other note was omitted. The human 
soul is a complex thing. One part works into another, 
and stimulates it or rests on it. There is an order and 
arrangement in the human mind by which, if men re- 
tain the full possession of every part of their interior 
selves, and exert every part in succession, or consen- 
taneously, they touch true happiness, and happiness of 
the largest kind and the most enduring. 

There is great sublimity in this ideal manhood, and 
in the largeness of the conception which enters into the 
actual creative idea. We see it in some persons ; but 
it seems to me that the great majority of men do not 
attempt to cultivate much of themselves. A few acres 



262 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

around the house are tilled, but the outlying estate 
beyond that is almost untouched. 

What are men's resources for happiness in the aver- 
age of cases ? Well, pretty good health and reasonable 
comfort in eating and drinking and sleeping. And 
these are not to be despised. Good sleep is one 
luxury. A good appetite is another. Good digestion 
is another, and the mother of a great many others. 
They are all right. And what is there besides these ? 
A low form of social good-nature. They are cheery, 
they greet each other heartily, and they are reasonably 
happy. They experience a mild form of enjoyment 
from this source. What else is there ? Well, they 
think that they are on the way to some degree of suc- 
cess in business, and they live on a little. What else ? 
Once in a while they go to a party and " spree it " a little. 
They have a cataract of pleasure all at once. What 
else ? Well, that is about all, unless they go to meet- 
ing and get converted and have a good time. This is a 
process which yields a distinct spiritual luxury. They 
mount up suddenly into coruscations of feeling that 
burn bright and quick, and go out and leave nothing 
behind. That is about all there is when you come to 
count up what most men have. 

What would you think if, when a man had played 
on some great organ Yankee Doodle and three or four 
waltzes, he could play nothing else ? What would 
you think if he knew those little whistling tunes and 
only those ? The organ has the power of coming into 
sympathy with God's thunder, and into sweet harmony 
with all the birds that sing through the air in spring. 
It has the power of representing, as it were, the breath 



HAPPINESS. • 263 

of flowers and the thoughts of the angels that sang on 
Christmas morning; and what would you think of a 
man if he sat down to a grand organ, that is so attuned 
to harmony, and could only play two or three little 
fiddling tunes ? 

But what organ did the hand of man ever build with 
such diapason as God put into the human soul, where 
there are notes of possible manhood which run as high 
as imagination and faith and hope can soar ? What 
other instrument has such pipes as those which belong 
to the soul of man ? And what do men bring out of 
that grand instrument which is in them ? What tunes, 
what melodies, what anthems, what symphonies, is it 
capable of producing ! and yet how poor are the pro- 
ducts of it in the soul of the average man ! 

Look upon men who are seeking pleasure. I con- 
demn them, not because they seek pleasure, but because 
they seek it in such ways, — in ways so mean and 
penurious ; and because, though they seek it in such 
ways, they think themselves to be happy. 

How few are there who, if one source of enjoyment 
in them is stopped, have another to fall back upon ! A 
man's business goes heavily ; it grows worse and worse, 
and finally it crumbles to pieces and leaves him in the 
Eed Sea of bankruptcy. His business was about all 
there was of him. And now that that is gone he is 
restless, he is uneasy, he is unhappy ; he has no warm 
social life, full of checkered lights and all manner of 
enjoyment and cheer and consolation, in which he can 
take refuge. He has no fine tastes ; so that though he 
is bankrupt, though he has been ejected from house and 
home, though all his pictures are gone, and though his 



264 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

musical instruments are taken away from him, he still 
finds pictures which the morning paints, and w T hich are 
painted in the sky at evening, where God has been the 
artist, and still finds music in the air such as no in- 
strument fashioned by human skill can produce. The 
man who has his understanding open, and who lives in 
the full possession of his faculties, has resources which 
no selfish nature can touch and no human decree can 
rub out. And yet, how many men do we find who, 
when they go into old age and retire from active busi- 
ness, are exactly like a man who has carried with him 
all his days a knife with a hundred blades, but has only 
opened one, and that the big blade ! He has worked 
and worked with that all the time ; and now that he 
has got to be an old man he thinks that he will try 
some other blade. But he cannot open it. It has never 
been opened, and it is rusted in the joint. Or, if he 
succeeds in forcing it open, he cannot do anything with 
it. It never has been used, and it is not fit for use. 
He tries another. That, too, is rusted and spoiled. All 
of them are ruined except one or two which he has 
been accustomed to use, and they are so worn down 
that they are pretty much gone. They have no good 
cutting edge. Therefore he is not much better off than 
he would be if he had no knife. 

There are many business men who have very little 
intellectual resource, very little resource in taste, and 
very little in social life. They have been brought up 
to do a few things, and they have derived all their hap- 
piness from a few sources. And when those sources 
fail they have nothing else to turn to. 

Here is the soul of man, with ranks and gradations 



HAPPINESS. 265 

of faculties, with chamber after chamber filled with 
wondrous powers; but they are inert and unused. 
There is no life in them. They are not applied to any 
worthy object. Nothing is more common than to see 
men who have been successful in narrow lines thrown 
out of the channels where their success has been 
achieved, and left without any resources for happiness. 
Their activities have been partial, and for the most 
part of a basilar kind ; but the indispensable condition 
of happiness is that every part of a man's nature shall 
be made active. 

Education, then, looking at it in this large way, is 
not simply preparing a man with a good edge to do 
business with. We often hear people talk about the 
fitness of their children for certain things. " George 
does not seem calculated to fall into very active ways ; 
he is quiet, and perhaps a little stupid. I think he will 
make a good minister. We will send him to college. 
But Edward is active, energetic ; every edge cuts with 
him. I think he had better be a mei chant. We will 
make a merchant of him." But are you not going to 
send him to college ? " no. He is going to be a 
merchant. You would not send a merchant to col- 
lege, would you ? " Why not ? What is an education 
for ? Is it simply an investment in business, or is it 
an investment in manhood ? Do you educate your 
children simply that they may succeed in a certain 
profession, or that they may succeed in themselves, — 
in what they are ? I say that education means a true 
manhood all through ; and if I had the means to do it, 
I would educate my boy if he was going to be a black- 
smith, or if he was going before the mast as a common 



266 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

sailor. In other words, I would develop in him all of 
himself that God gave him. What education means is 
to give a man the full use of all his powers. To stuff a 
man is not to educate him, any more than stuffing a 
trunk with books is educating that trunk. A man is 
educated who has learned what he is, and knows how to 
use himself, and how to bring out of himself that which 
belongs to manhood here and hereafter. Every man 
should be educated, and every woman should be edu- 
cated, no matter where they are, — only mark this : that 
while their external relations may require certain edu- 
cations, their own nature requires all the more educa- 
tion if they cannot make merchandise of it. 

Those are the most neglected in their education who 
need education most. If those who are in the busy 
whirl of practical life, and who are prosperous, can get 
along without it, they who are so circumstanced that 
they cannot be active, and who are not blessed with 
outward prosperity, cannot get along without it. 
Those who are poor and retired, and have no other 
stimulus, ought to have large mental resources. Their 
eyes should be open in every direction, that they may 
compensate themselves for the want of external endow- 
ments. I plead for education, not because it is the 
highway to prosperity in law or in medicine or in the 
pulpit or in political life or in science, but because it 
means manhood. All parts of the mind waked up, 
made productive, made sensitive to the touch of God, 
are the source of real joy. When, therefore, I say that 
a condition of happiness is variety, versatility, and pro- 
ductiveness in every part of a man's nature, I plead for 
education in this large sense as the indispensable con- 



HAPPINESS. 267 

dition of a continuing, complex, and perpetuated hap- 
piness. 

It is worth our while to think for a moment as to 
the productiveness in pleasure of the different parts of 
the soul. All of them are more or less productive 
of pleasure. I do not say that there is no pleasure in 
lower forms of indulgence. A glutton has pleasure, or 
he would not be a glutton. It would be absurd to say 
that there is an effect without a cause. There is a 
pleasure in getting drunk, I suppose. There is a 
pleasure which the miser feels. There is a pleasure 
which the envious man feels. There is rejoicing in 
iniquity. Wrong-doing confers a certain sort of pleas- 
ure. Every part of the nature of man has its own mode 
of pleasure. 

It is not necessary to the exaltation of morality, it is 
not necessary to the making of religion attractive, to 
undertake to say that nobody can be happy unless he 
is a religious man. That is not true. A great many 
religious men are not happy, and a great many irreligious 
men are happy. To say that a man can enjoy more in 
a religious life than he can in a lower life is to say the 
truth, although it is not everybody that finds it out. 
My impression is that, in a general way, that part of 
our nature which comes in contact with the physical, 
and controls it, has the most sudden and the most sharp 
exhilaration of pleasure, but the briefest. The flavor 
passes from the tongue, and is gone. All physical 
pleasures are momentary, how r ever intense they may 
be, and there is very little memory of them. And 
although these very pleasures are real, they are shallow 
and unstable. They are inadequate, and do not cling 



268 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

to us. They do not fill the mind with associations 
which afterwards revisit it, as the higher forms of 
pleasure do. 

Next to these, men think, are the better forms of 
social intercourse. These certainly are higher elements 
of pleasure than those which we have just been con- 
sidering, — higher in this regard, that each particular 
emotion, though milder, has greater continuity. Social 
pleasures bring self-respect ; they bring out a sense of 
kindness and benevolence; they diffuse a higher in- 
fluence through the mind than mere physical pleasures 
do. They develop a new atmosphere in us, so that, 
although they may not be so intense as physical pleas- 
ures, they are more conducive to enjoyment. The 
flavor may not be so pungent, but the sum of the 
happiness which we derive from them is very much 
greater. 

Men may be too greedy of pleasure, just as they may 
be too greedy of interest. I have heard capitalists say 
that seven per cent good sound legal interest is in the 
long run the only safe interest to take, and that men 
who insist on taking ten or fifteen per cent take it at 
risks which the average experiences of business men 
show to be unwise. However that may be in money 
matters (for that is a realm in which my judgment is 
very imperfect), it is certainly so in the traffic of the 
soul. If you take too high an interest, you will be 
bankrupt. The man who wants to make more pleasure 
in any part than rightfully belongs to it, the man who 
will not take low interest and have it paid continuously 
and promptly, is very foolish. The interchange of ten 
thousand little feelings, the by-play, the internal play, 



HAPPINESS. 269 

the external play, of social life, — all these are far more 
fruitful of happiness than intense physical pleasure, 
which is merely transient. If you count along the line 
of these minute enjoyments, how much is the sum of 
them ! How much they minister to self-respect, as 
well as to happiness ! 

Then we come to a still higher form of pleasures, — 
those derived from semi-moral faculties, — where we 
become executive, creative, and fashion things in life, 
exercising power and skill, and that for kind and 
benevolent purposes. A peculiar sensation of pleasure 
proceeds from this source. Where there is development 
and activity of the higher range of faculties for noble 
purposes, it is as if an angel touched us. There is more 
joy in a sinple hour of such activity than there is in 
days of the lower forms of delight. 

But a man does not touch his supremest happiness 
until he is thoroughly spiritualized, until he inhabits 
the whole higher range of his being, — that part of the 
soul which came from God, and touches God again, and 
which receives the immediate inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, by which every other part of his nature is held 
in control and warmed and illumined. In that higher 
range the pleasure is ecstatic, not boisterous ; not de- 
monstrative, not taking on the forms that flash and emit 
sparks, but peaceful, inward, unutterable thoughts of 
the highest possibilities in life. 

Connected with this last form of pleasure there is no 
after pain. It is wine which one may drink to the 
very bottom. It brings neither intoxication at the 
present nor pang afterwards. The highest joy lies 
in the plenary inspiration of the highest feelings of 
the souL 



270 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

And there is this additional thing : that, while the 
bottom never commands the top, the top commands the 
intermediate and the bottom, all through. A man who 
lives in a true spiritual union with God, and who has 
developed every part of himself, has a perfect right to 
all that lies below him of animal enjoyments and social 
pleasures. And these enjoyments and pleasures are 
nobler and better to him because he views them in the 
light of his higher feelings. 

Do you suppose the gourmand who, sitting alone, his 
eyes standing out with fatness, gulps his food, enjoys it 
as much as that child of mercy enjoys hers ? She who 
has gone on foot with the army, ministering to the 
wounded and the sick, and spending her very life in 
the service of others, worn out with fatigue, and sitting 
down in the corner, at last, where the sun may warm 
her attenuated form, as she eats the hard-tack and the 
plainest meat, perhaps half cooked, to supply her neces- 
sity, — do you not suppose that that morsel tastes as 
sweet to her as the delicacies of the glutton do to him ? 
I believe it does. And if she afterward, in a moment 
of leisure, is brought to a banquet, do you suppose the 
fact that she lives in the higher realm of benevolence 
prevents her enjoying that banquet ? Do you suppose 
that her elevation takes away from her pleasure when 
such rarer physical delights are multiplied around about 
her. I think that a godly man's food tastes as good to 
him as a sinner's does to him, and sometimes a great 
deal better. It is supposed that when we live in our 
higher life we abandon the lower life. No. We use it 
better. We take it in harmony with all our higher 
instincts. 



HAPPINESS. 271 

I remark, still further, that not only are the lower 
forms of pleasure more evanescent than the higher 
forms, but that, while they are strong at the beginning 
of life, they decrease in power to the end ; whereas the 
pleasures which we derive from the upper part of the 
mind, while they are the smallest at the beginning of 
life, continually increase all the way through. The 
wedge is reversed. Animal, physical pleasures begin 
large and attractive, but run tapering to an edge, and 
die out by the time one becomes reasonably old. When 
the health begins to fail, and the eye begins to grow 
dim, and the ear is heavy of hearing, and the foot is 
weary of moving, and the muscles are softening, and 
the nerves do not know any more how to vibrate and 
flash fire as once they did, — then it is that these 
pleasures abandon a man. As one grows old he finds 
that physical pleasures forsake him; and if his only 
dependence for happiness has been upon these, his 
after-life is poor and miserable. But he who does not 
sacrifice higher physical pleasures to low sensuous 
pleasures has sources of enjoyment which go on with 
him to the end of life ; so that if friends forsake him, 
and his property is gone, and heart and flesh fail, and 
the eye is blind,- and the ear is deaf, and he stands on 
the edge of the grave, brighter than ever is the light of 
faith. Then hope illumines the whole horizon. Then 
love cheers. The man who has lived in the fear of 
God, and in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, finds the 
beginnings of this life happy, and learns that his hap- 
piness increases and deepens as it rolls on, until at last 
it is like the Amazon where it mingles with the ocean. 



272 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

Higher pleasures, which at first do not look promising, 
are harmonious and continuous ; and in the end grow 
sweeter and richer, and are never so great as at the 
very end, where most we need them. 

In view of these illustrations and reasonings, I re- 
mark, first, that the legitimate activity to which we 
are called in the providence of God, in securing a 
livelihood and in maintaining our households and 
our relations in society, is not to be looked upon as 
burdensome or as a misfortune. We are not to regard 
those persons as being the most happy who have 
the least to do. Neither are we to suppose that those 
only are on their way to happiness who are obliged to 
work for their livelihood. But every man should be 
active, as the indispensable condition of present hap- 
piness ; and every man's happiness should be of such a 
sort that it shall produce happiness again by and by. 
Work is not a curse. Drudgery is. Enforced work, 
work that does not carry the heart with it, work un- 
illumined by the mind, work with the hand without any 
connection with the head, — ■ that is a curse. But true 
work is God's bounty and blessing; and every man 
should be active, because to bring out the faculties in 
activity by work is the very road to happiness. I 
think that, ordinarily speaking, men are not so happy 
outside of their business as they are inside of it. That 
is good. It is right. As a general thing, men who 
take a day here and a day there and go out after hap- 
piness do not find it. It may be a rest, or it may be a 
satisfaction, much depending upon the nature of it ; but 
in a great deal of that which men seek with large ex- 
penditure of money and stamina and health, they are 



HAPPINESS. 273 

not half so happy as they are in their regular and 
normal pursuits, because these pursuits keep up a 
gentle activity of the whole mind, and they have their 
remuneration, and enjoy it more from day to day. 
When they go out on purpose for pleasure, it is exces- 
sive, exciting, disturbing, and amounts often to dissi- 
pation. Eelaxation and recreation men must have, or 
wear out ; but the real enjoyment of life to an active 
man is in his activity. Again, men should provide 
something for old age to do. They should so educate 
themselves to be active that, when they come to the 
end of their life, they shall still find that they have 
aptitudes and occupations to keep the mind agoing. 
For the moment we cease to have activity we cease to 
have life. Now and then we find the aged living with 
no responsibility and no care, and yet with a certain 
degree of happiness ; but ten times oftener we find that 
if a man who has been very happy and very healthy 
and vigorous, on coming to be sixty-five years of age, 
drops off business, and goes to live with one of his 
children, in a year or two everybody says, " How he 
has failed ! " and at last he sickens and dies ; while if 
he had maintained regular and normal care and respon- 
sibility in business, he would have lasted ten or fifteen 
years longer, and been useful withal. Stopping work 
is bad business for old people. 

A man ought to have some provision for old age. A 
part of the business of life is to get ready to be wise ; 
and if you have only two or three things that you can 
enjoy, and they are things which time and decay may 
remove from you, what are you going to do in old age ? 
Suppose a man builds his whole life on the enjoyment 



274 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

which comes from amassing wealth, what will he do 
when the time comes that he cannot amass any more ? 
The whole pleasure of his life has been derived from 
that; and when that stops, the fountain from which 
his happiness has proceeded is sealed up to him. He 
has created a necessity which cannot be supplied in 
his old age, and the consequence is that that old age 
will be miserable to him. But a man who has culti- 
vated every part of his being, every faculty of his 
nature, may retire from business, and yet have sources 
from which he can derive satisfaction. The book yet 
speaks to him. He has commerce with men who are 
gone, and the best parts of them. "The spirits of 
just men made perfect " are good books. "Where a 
man in old age has buoyancy, activity of mind, acute 
sensibility, knowledge, and culture, you cannot deprive 
him of enjoyment. If you stop up one resource, he 
resorts to another. If you cut that off, he takes another. 
He is vital in every part. He is full of manhood. Age 
does not pall his taste. It is a glorious thing to see a 
man walking full-freighted with activity up to the very 
gate of death, and, knocking, find that it is the gate of 
heaven. 

Men who secure riches or power by the sacrifice of 
manhood, spending themselves by piecemeal, do that 
than which nothing could be more foolish. What if a 
man should collect musical instruments, and should, 
every time he found a new and a fine one, pay for it by 
subtracting something from his power of hearing, so 
that when he had filled his house with these exquisite 
musical instruments he was stone deaf, — what good 
would they do him ? 



HAPPINESS. 275 

Suppose a man should buy the best paintings of the 
old masters, and the choicest pieces of the new artists, 
to fill his gallery, and should give one ray of eyesight 
for every new picture, so that when he had finished his 
collection he was as blind as a bat, — what good would 
these pictures do him ? Suppose a man should buy 
provision, and heap his barn full, and fill his stalls 
with fine steeds and cattle, and fill his bins with grain, 
and should pay for these numerous treasures by giving 
up one part after another of his house, so that when he 
got his barn well stored he should have no house to 
live in, — how much would he enjoy the abundance of 
his winter's provisions ? And yet, are not men doing 
that which is as foolish as this would be ? Are they 
not paying for money by sacrificing their conscience ? 
Many of them are saying, " It is not possible for us to 
prosper in business if we stop to meddle with taste. 
We cannot now attend to sentimentality. In the 
conflicts of life and in the rivalries of business, if men 
are going to succeed they must push right ahead, and 
not stand for trifles." For success, do not men pay. their 
sensibility ? do they not pay their household enjoy- 
ments ? do they not pay wholesome pleasures ? And 
when they have at last attained success, have they not 
given up the best part of their being, and are they not 
utterly unfitted to enjoy that success ? 

" A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
which he possesseth." 

Look at the excuse of the man spoken of by our 
Master in the parable, who said, — 

" What shall I do, because I have not room where to bestow 
my fruits V 



276 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

It is as if, in modern parlance, a man should say, 
u How shall I invest my money ? Which are the safest 
stocks ? Where shall I put my capital ? What shall I 
do with my accumulating interest ? 

" And he said, This will I do : I will pull down my barns and 
build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my 
goods." 

And now see how the fool talks : — 

"And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." 

Do you suppose that these things are soul- food ? 
Is wealth the proper sustenance for the spirit ? What 
a fantasy of folly was this ! Can one's manhood be 
built up merely by the possession of treasure ? When 
men have acquired money they instantly begin to feel 
that it is inadequate. Their restlessness is not satis- 
fied. Much as it is, they call for .more, and more, and 
more; but it does not bring the gratification which 
they want. They feel the need of men's sympathy and 
♦confidence. 

Oftentimes you will find men who have been penu- 
rious all their lives, and who have amassed a fortune, 
attempting to buy respect in their old age. Sometimes 
they do it by making their will, and letting it be known 
what they are going to do. That is an exquisite piece 
of trickery. Where a man wants to keep his money, 
and also wants to have the credit of giving it away, he 
holds on to it, and lets it be known that he is going to 
give $250,000 for benevolent purposes, — $ 10,000 
here, $ 20,000 there, $ 50,000 somewhere else, and so 
on. There are many men who are going to be very 
generous when they die. Dead men are always gener- 



HAPPINESS. 277 

ous. They keep their money while they live, and only 
give it away w T hen they no longer own it. 

When men are surrounded by all that earth can 
give them, — by position, by circumstance, by plenary 
physical blessings, — how, after all, do they long- for 
more ! How piteous it is to see them ! Nothing on 
earth seems to me more piteous than the crying out of 
the soul for something better than this lower world can 



■■*& 



A child, drawn away from its home into a gypsy 
camp, cries for its father and mother, but by kindness 
and soothing it is hushed and quieted down. And yet 
it sobs in its sleep. And when it wakes up it cries for 
its parents again. It is quieted again, but still it is 
heart-sick and homesick for its father and mother. 

So man's soul cries out in the midst of wealth and 
outward comforts, and is not satisfied, and longs and 
pines, and does not know what ails it. No man's soul 
can rest until it touches God's soul. No man can be 
happy until he is made happy by the disclosure of the 
royalty of the Divine nature. 

Once more, let me say that if you suppose that 

Christianity, rightly viewed and interpreted, is offended 

at lower happiness, you are greatly mistaken. You 

must have Christianity from top to bottom. It does 

not prevent our being happy. It does not make us 

miserable. It may sometimes be necessary for our joy 

to be turned into sadness. But in order that you may 

be happy, put down rebellion in yourself. Compel 

those lusts and appetites which are usurping the place. 

of your noblest nature to submit. Put the yoke on 

them. And if it makes them suffer, that is their look- 
13 



278 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

out. For the sake of joy, for the sake of full and en- 
during happiness, subordinate your whole life to the 
counsel of God, and fill the soul with education, with 
development, with power. Let no one part of it carry 
you wrong and take possession of your whole life. Let 
there be no dividing. Let that which belongs to the 
spirit be filled with spirituality, that which belongs to 
life be filled with life, that which belongs to domestic 
work be filled with domestic work, that which belongs 
to the earth be filled with the earth. Let all parts be 
cultivated and devoted to their proper uses, and all con- 
secrated to the joyful service of God. 

It is not enough for a man to build a ship so that it 
looks beautiful as it stands on the stocks. What though 
a man build his vessel so trim and graceful that all 
admire it, if when she comes to be launched she is not 
fit for the sea, if she cannot stand stormy weather, if she 
is a slow sailer and a poor carrier, if she is liable to foun- 
der on the voyage ? A ship, however pretty she may be, 
is not good for anything unless she can battle with the 
deep. That is the place to test her. All her fine lines 
and grace and beauty are of no account if she fails 
there. It makes no difference how splendidly you 
build so far as this world is concerned, your life is a 
failure unless you build so that you can go out into 
the great future on the eternal sea of life. We are to 
live on. We are not to live again, but we are to live 
without break. Death is not an end. It is a new 
impulse. We are discharged out of this life, where we 
have been like arrows in a quiver. Death is a bow 
which sends us shooting far beyond this earthly expe- 
rience into another and a higher life. Woe be to that 



HAPPINESS. 279 

man who is rich for this world and bankrupt for the 
other. Woe be to that man who so lives here that he 
will have nothing hereafter. Woe be to that man who 
when he dies leaves everything behind him for which 
he has spent all the energies of his life. Woe be to 
that man who so uses this world that it makes him 
useless for the world to come. Heart-life, soul-life, 
hope, joy, and love are true riches. Such riches a 
man will carry through the grave with him. No man 
can take his house nor his merchandise nor his ships 
with him when he dies. A man's books, his fame, his 
political influence, his physical enjoyment, his granary, 
his farm, his team, his loaded wain, — these things stop 
on this side of the grave. The gate of death is not big 
enough to let them through. Nobody carries his body 
through the grave. 

" We brought nothing into this life, and we can carry 
nothing out of it," it is said. That is true of the 
physical; but 0, we can carry something out! We 
receive life as a spark, and we can make it glow like a 
beacon light ; and that we can carry with us w T hen we 
go. Faith and hope kindled and exercised, — these we 
can carry out. Love to God and love to our fellow- 
beings, — that we can carry out. The best parts of 
ourselves we can carry out. When the farmer goes 
into his field in the autumn to harvest his grain, he 
takes the head of the wheat. That is what he cares 
for. It matters little to him if the straw and the chaff 
go to the ground again. In taking the wiieat he takes 
that for which these things were provided. He takes 
the ripe kernel, and leaves behind the straw and the 
chaff, which were simply designed to serve as wrappers 



280 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

for the growing and ripening grain. The ripe grain, — 
that we carry out. 

See to it, then, that yon so live that when the death- 
signal comes it shall come to you as a call from the 
New Jerusalem. Go not out as men who run before 
the scourge. Go not out, as in the morning the reluc- 
tant field-hands are driven forth, — slaves to their tasks. 
Go out with your bosom filled with sheaves, as the 
reapers go from the field to their home, singing and 
rejoicing on the way. Go mourned here and longed 
for there. Go with the impulse of eternal joy in you, 
because you love and are beloved. 




XII. 

TEMPERANCE. 

u There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the 

ENDS THEREOF ARE THE WAYS OF DEATH." — Proverbs xiv. 12. 

HIS is peculiarly applicable to those who 
are young, who are going, as it were, 
along unknown paths, and who see, 
branching out to the right or to the left, 
roads planted with flowers, overhung with vines, and 
full of tempting sights and beckoning pleasures, ap- 
parently secure and joyful. But these roads, once 
entered, are difficult to leave; and the sights that 
tempted men, and the pleasures that beckoned them, 
are gradually exchanged for harder and harder fates. 
The smooth road soon becomes precipitous, the easy 
and apparently safe course soon becomes full of peril, 
and at last men are plunged into remediless destruc- 
tion. 

This is the career of thousands. They enter upon 
ways which are enticing, which are covered with 
beauty, which promise great remuneration, which 
fulfill only in part the things promised, and which, 
having deluded, at last destroy them. 

There are a great many such ways, but there is 



282 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

only one of them which I propose to speak upon at 
present, and that is the way of the drinker. 

Those who are about at my time of life remember 
the beginning of the temperance reformation, and how 
strong and various were the influences and impulses 
and instruments by which the attention of the com- 
munity was aroused. There was at first novelty ; then 
conviction ; and at last fashion and public sentiment 
concurred. This movement has run through one 
generation, and also has run through a kind of moral 
period, and a reaction has come on ; a generation of 
young persons has arisen less informed, perhaps, on 
this subject, than that which immediately preceded it. 
It becomes important, therefore, that churches and 
ministers should renew the instruction of the young 
on the dangers of drinking. 

I do not propose to go into a denunciatory tirade 
against liquor dealers, or against dram-shops, or against 
the drinking usages of society. I propose, to-night, 
to speak to the young men of my charge, and to the 
community, in so far as my words may be borne out 
to them ; and I propose to speak as an elder brother, 
and to address this subject, with all moderation, and yet 
with all earnestness, to their best judgment. I ask you 
to consider the subject of entire abstinence from all 
that intoxicates, from motives which bear upon your 
personal welfare, from motives which bear upon the 
welfare of the society in which you live, and from mo- 
tives which spring from religion itself. And I remark, 

1. A healthy nature never craves intoxicating 
drinks. Men are not drawn to the use of intoxicating 
drinks as they are drawn to the use of food, or of ordi- 



TEMPERANCE. 283 

nary drinks. I suppose that ninety-nine in a hundred 
of the men that drink, learned, and had to learn, to 
love intoxicating beverages ; and I suppose that those 
who indulge in them most, and most ruinously, have 
to do it with a testimony that they are not palatable. 
You are not, therefore, called to follow any great in- 
stinct in drinking. The sin of indulging in intoxicat- 
ing drinks is not like a passional sin ; it is not like 
obedience to some original master-passion that de- 
mands gratification. There is no such excuse for men 
who drink as that of natural hunger or thirst. Men 
may be naturally hungry or thirsty, but men are not 
by nature thirsty for wine, nor for whisky, nor for 
brandy, nor for any other compound ; so that in 
drinking there is no obedience on the part of men to 
any radical instinct or radical impulse. 

Hence, the use of intoxicating drinks is not neces- 
sary. It is not prompted by anything that is natural 
in yourself. If you say : " Yes, I have a natural crav- 
ing for it," then to you I say : That is the very rea- 
son why you should not take it! If you have no 
craving for it, why should you peril yourself by it ? 
And if you have such a craving, surely, if you are 
wise, you will not put yourself in danger by indulg- 
ing it. If you have the appetite in you, then by all 
means, unless you are utterly reckless in regard to 
your own welfare, you will take warning, and shun the 
danger which threatens you. 

2. Alcoholic stimulants are not needful. Not only 
does a desire for them not spring from any constitu- 
tional impulse or necessity, but experience has shown 
that they are not needful as elements of diet. I do 



284 LECTURES TO YOUXG MEV. 

not undertake to say that they have no place medi- 
cinally, or as a convalescent's diet. I express a well- 
matured judgment when I say that they have been 
employed medicinally in a manner very rash, and not 
scientific ; but I do not propose to interfere with the 
doctors* sphere, except to express the wish that they 
might study the moral interests of their patients as 
much as they do their physical well-being, and as lit- 
tle as possible put men under temptation by prescrip- 
tions which require the continuous use of alcoholic 
stimulants. They are not needful for health, and they 
are not needful for strength. They are not a part of 
a man's normal diet. You are not. therefore, required 
to indulge in them for the same reason that you are 
required to indulge in meat, or in bread, or in milk, or 
in water. 

3. Alcoholic stimulants are not usually palatable. 
Young men who drink seldom love at first what they 
drink. They serve an apprenticeship to a bad habit. 
I have alluded to this already ; but there is in it a still 
further point to be developed. There are many things 
that men do which they do not like to do, and for 
which they have no natural appetite ; but then, they 
gain something by doing them that is worth the toil 
required to overcome the barriers that surround them. 
Very few there are who like the methodical industry 
which is required to master a trade. So young men 
are obliged to do what they do not want to do. and are 
kept from doing what they want to do. The result 
is that, at the end of five or seven years of apprentice- 
ship, they have earned an equivalent to the labor 
which they have performed during those years. 



TEMPERANCE. 285 

The young man who studies a profession studies 
against his will a great deal of the time ; or rather, 
he obliges himself by his will to study for the sake of 
that which he will gain by study. 

And so we are continually, in one sense, going 
against nature ; that is, we are continually going 
against the lower nature for the sake of the higher. 
There is an upper or spirit nature, and there is a 
lower or flesh nature; and the upper often demands 
the denial of the lower. When, therefore, men study 
long for a professional life, or practice long with the 
hand for an artist or artisan life, they go against 
their natural tendency. They gain something that is 
worth all the self-denial and all the painstaking to 
which they subject themselves. But when men learn 
to love drink, for which they have no natural appe- 
tite, what do they get in return, but habits that are 
fraught with danger? They gain no equivalent for 
what they give. They force nature, and force na- 
ture for the purpose of bringing themselves into a 
condition in which their whole life will be full of 
peril. 

4. Drinking habits are not economical. And 
economy, though it is a very homely virtue, and is 
not reckoned among moral virtues, and is spoken of 
as a commercial virtue, has almost important relation 
to a young man's prosperity, regarded not only com- 
mercially, but morally. I need not speak of it as a 
matter of commerce. Great moderation in the expen- 
diture of money — great frugality in the early part of 
a man's life — is a part of that education which every 
man is expected to gain who means to acquire a for- 



286 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

tune, and become a responsible and influential man in 
the community. 

Now, the administration of one's wealth, or of 
one's affairs, in a close, careful, and successful way, is 
morally beneficial, inasmuch as it means self-denial, 
forethought, arrangement, with a purpose, followed 
by a definite action of the will. All these things are 
self-governing elements. Self-government may begin 
with pecuniary matters, as well as with other affairs. 
Thousands of men take their first step in moral 
life through the drill which economy requires. And 
no young man, whatever his situation in life may be, 
has a right to despise economy, or has a right to be 
careless or profuse in the expenditure of his means. 
No matter if a man's hands are in mines of wealth, he 
has no right to make a wasteful use of that wealth. 
No man has a right to go from youth to manhood 
without having formed rigid habits of economy. If 
you are poor, then the way out of poverty into wealth 
is through economy ; if you are rich, then you should 
administer your riches so that your example shall be a 
blessing and not a curse to the community. You are 
God's steward, and you have no right to recklessly 
spend money that you did not earn — though young 
men seem mostly to think that they have a right to 
scatter all the money that they can lay their hands 
on ! 

The majority of young men, when they enter upon 
life, have but little at the beginning. More than half 
— yes, more than two-thirds, probably — of the young 
men who come to New York to seek their fortune 
come with a very slender pittance. They are obliged 



TEMPERANCE. 287 

to live upon a very small income. And it ought to 
be a matter of pride with, every young man to be able 
to live on his income, however small it may be, and 
inside of it. It is not necessary that you should live 
here as you lived at home. It might be more agree- 
able, but it is not necessary. There is something high- 
er than living at a first-class boarding-house, or at a 
hotel. There is something better than having a luxu- 
rious table. It is not necessary that a young man should 
go to a boarding-house at all. If your means will not al- 
low it, it is not necessary that you should go any high- 
er than to buy your loaf and eat it in your own room. 
" But," you will reply, " what sort of a life is that, 
where a young man works all day, and then goes like 
a dog to his kennel at night, and gnaws his loaf, and 
drinks his cold water, and creeps under his straw, and 
gets up in the morning and gnaws his loaf again, and 
then drags himself out to work once more ? " I think 
there should be provision made for a more respectable 
method of cheap living ; and yet, until that provision 
is made, even such a life, voluntarily assumed, is no- 
bler than for a young man to live at a higher rate, and 
steal the difference between his salary and his ex- 
penses, as men are often not ashamed to do ! It is bet- 
ter for a young man to feel so proud that he will not 
go one penny beyond what he lawfully owns. And 
even if a young man is wealthy, it is noble for him to 
live on a moderate allowance. But when young men 
come to the city, and have but a small pittance of sal- 
ary to live on, how often do they split up and divide 
that pittance, and waste a large portion of it on tobacco 
and drink ! 



288 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEK 

I shall not now enter upon a crusade against the use 
of tobacco, though I think it is entirely needless. The 
most self-indulgent and the most selfish of luxuries is 
that of tobacco. I never knew a dozen men that used 
tobacco that cared anything about whether they smelled 
agreeable to other people, or whether they carried 
themselves so that other people were happy, or not. 
They will foul the house, they will foul the boat, they 
will foul the car, if they are not arbitrarily restrained. 
They forget father and mother, and wife and children, 
and all others, and go through life smoking, stenchf ul 
and disagreeable ; and when they are expostulated with, 
they laugh ! The use of tobacco does not make a man 
a monster : but it usually makes him selfish in respect 
to the comfort of people round about him. Though 
I consider this to be a most disagreeable and selfish 
habit, I do not look upon it as being at all equal to 
drinking in its evil effects ; but it is a very wasteful 
habit. There are few young men that are beginning 
life who can afford to smoke. 

And, much more, there are few young men that 
can afford to drink when they are beginning life ; for, 
if you drink cheaply, you drink meanly. If you drink 
wholesomely, you drink dearly. Drinking involves an 
expense that very few at the beginning of life can 
afford to incur. 

Drinking habits take hold indirectly upon the 
whole framework of a man's prosperity. They lead 
to very many expenses besides the daily expense of 
the cup. They bring one into society, and introduce 
him to customs which are constantly a serious tax 
upon him. They place him in a position where he is 



TEMPERANCE. 289 

subjected to a great many expenditures which, under 
other circumstances, he might avoid. For they who 
come together for drinking purposes are seldom per- 
sons who are careful to engineer their way, little by 
little, and step by step, up to a strong and safe man- 
hood. Out of the circle where drinking is carried on 
for purposes of pleasure there open, day by day, hun- 
dreds of doors that never open without a fee ; and a 
young man who forms the habit of drinking takes on 
an expense that wastes his patrimony, and will contin- 
ually keep him down. 

This may not be the case with all, and it will be 
the case with some more than with others ; but, with 
the majority, reasons of economy should be sufficient 
to dissuade them from forming drinking habits. 

5. Drinking habits open the door to many temp- 
tations which no man has a right to encounter. Yices 
come with drinking habits. Young men who are 
susceptible, wide-awake, and unformed in their habits, 
are inclined to smoke a little, and drink a little, and 
gamble a little, and " see life" a little ; and this group 
of little vices is very apt to invite the company of 
larger vices. Drinking habits throw young men into 
associations, and under circumstances, where it is far 
more likely that their lower nature will be solicited 
than their higher moral nature. 

Now, there are many that are frail in the hour 
of temptation, and that must needs utter that petition 
of the Lord's Prayer, " Lead us not into tempta- 
tion " — as if we should go down if we came into its 
presence, as we should, many of us. The majority 
of us are so weak that we have no right to bring 



290 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ourselves into temptation by forming habits of drink- 
ing. 

6. There cannot be a doubt as to the fact that 
habits of drinking withdraw from a young man the 
confidence of those who watch and gauge young 
men. Young men who are preparing themselves for 
life, by drinking lose the confidence of those who 
desire to employ respectable and trustworthy men. 
The knowledge that a young man drinks destroys his 
reputation for trustworthiness. 

I do not say that that is the case in every country. 
If a man is born under a vine in Italy, and is accus- 
tomed, from his youth up, to participation in the 
wine-cup, I do not say that he will not be considered 
trustworthy. We are very much creatures of the 
institutions and habits of the country where we live ; 
but in this country, where you are, and where I am 
speaking to you, it is not the habit of the population 
to indulge in the use of wine or strong drink, and it 
is so far opposed to an intelligent, correct public sen- 
timent among us, that it unquestionably leaves a mark 
upon a young man who indulges in it. 

If you were looking out for a confidential clerk, 
and two young men presented themselves, in all 
respects equal, except that one of them was accus- 
tomed to indulge gently in drinking, and the other 
was not at all accustomed to it, you would not hesitate 
in your choice. Even if you did not scruple at 
putting wine on your own table, you would take the 
young man that was temperate. Many a man who is 
vicious wants his wife to be pure ; and many a man 
who drinks will not allow his clerks to drink. And, 



TEMPERANCE. 291 

if young men are addicted to even a mild indulgence 
in drinking habits, it is prejudicial to their good name 
and to their chances of success. 

This is a habit which is not required by any 
natural impulse, which is not necessary to your health, 
which is full of perils, which exposes you to various 
temptations, and which throws a shadow over the 
threshold of your business life. And why should 
you voluntarily form such a habit, or place yourself in 
such a position that you will almost inevitably fall 
into it ? What reason is there for your entering upon 
such a course ? 

7. Drinking may either develop a tendency which 
lies dormant in you, or it may create a tendency which 
does not already exist in your system. As a matter 
of fact, it is certain that there are many persons who 
inherit such an abnormal condition of the nervous 
system that, on suitable provocation, there spring up 
in them paroxysms which are almost as ungovernable 
as are convulsions or the paroxysms of neuralgia. 
There is such a thing as a latent tendency of the con- 
stitution that will slumber all one's life, if it be let 
alone — if those things which excite it be rigidly with- 
held — but that, if it be once roused up, will assert 
itself with a force that is well-nigh omnipotent. 
And there is many a man who, by taking alcoholic 
stimulants early in life, arouses that hereditary ten- 
dency in himself ; and, once being aroused, tiger-like, 
it destroys its victim. And thus thousands are de- 
stroyed irremedilessly. 

But if there is no such tendency in you ; if your 
father, and his father, and his father, or if your an- 



292 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

cestors on both sides, have sent down to you a consti- 
tution unimpaired, it may nevertheless be the fact 
that, from other causes, there is a condition of your 
system which predisposes you to that tendency which, 
if created in you, you will transmit to your posterity. 
And I cannot think of a cruelty greater than that 
which shall lead a parent, from reasons of mere self- 
indulgence, to roll down on his posterity, to many 
generations, a tendency which shall be one long and 
terrible curse to them. And yet there are multitudes 
that are doing it. 

Whoever consumes his own nervous system by 
excessive indulgence in any manner, prepares the way 
for those who come after him to be blighted in their 
whole nervous constitution. And if, in the use of 
intoxicating drinks, you drive up your jaded faculties, 
if, for the sake of fulfilling tasks that are beyond your 
power, you resort to unnatural stimulation, you pre- 
pare yourself to hand down to your posterity the 
blight of intemperance, if ever they shall touch the 
intoxicating bowl. 

8. No man has a right, under all the conditions 
that I have mentioned, to put himself in peril by 
either or all of these mischiefs. No man has a right 
to buy a ticket in this lottery of death. If a lottery 
should be started, if the wheel should be opened, and 
if you knew that there was one in each hundred of 
the tickets that would bring death and destruction to 
the person w^ho should draw it, you would not have 
anything to do with that lottery. You never would 
run the risk of losing your life, where the chances of 
death were one to a hundred, even if one of the 



TEMPERANCE. 293 

tickets was marked ten thousand dollars, another two 
thousand, and another one thousand. Wlio w T ould 
patronize such a lottery ? Who would not say that a 
man who did it courted death ? But here is a lottery 
in which the death-bearing tickets are more than one 
in every hundred. And what earthly reason is there 
that should induce a man to put in a venture where 
the risk is so great % What great good is there that 
he can hope to gain? There is none. What great 
happiness is there that he can reasonably expect to 
obtain % There is none. What customs impose on 
him the necessity of thus placing himself in jeopardy ? 
None that are not better broken than observed. What 
inward need impels him to it ? None. 

Thus far, I have argued this question on the lower 
grounds of expediency. I present, now, higher motives 
for the young to live a temperate life. 

1. Every man is bound to present himself to his 
age and country as noble a specimen of manhood as is 
possible to him. Every man is bound so to develop 
every part of his nature — his physical vigor, his intel- 
lectual strength, his moral powers — that when he pre- 
sents himself to his country he shall be worth that 
country's accepting, 

It was the custom among the Greeks, when a man 
had done w r ell, when he had made great achievements, 
to have a statue of him in some temple of the gods ; 
and their temples became museums, filled with statues 
of benefactors of the state. Every man is bound to 
case himself, not in marble, but in flesh and blood, in 
mental power, and in the higher attributes of the 
soul, and present himself, a living man, to the state, 



294 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

that lie m$y be, not a mere lifeless simulacrum, but a 
man of life and vigor, and an instrument of good, in 
the age to which he belongs. 

I love to see young men with a noble carriage, and 
with blooming health. I can not bear to see young 
men, that have every reason for building up a noble 
manhood, walking with a discolored face and an un- 
wholesome skin, which are signs of intemperance. 
Perhaps there is nothing more disreputable than for a 
young man to present himself a miserable wreck of 
what he might have been, and a burden, to the state 
and to the age in which he lives ; and perhaps there is 
nothing more creditable to a young man than to pre- 
sent himself to the state and to the age in which he 
lives a monument of health • and vigor and true man- 
liness. Temperance brings you to this higher and 
nobler condition of manhood, and intemperance takes 
you from it. 

2. !N"o man has a right to sport with all the inter- 
ests that are centred in a moral being, and to put him- 
self in peril for such reasons as mostly induce young 
men to drink. As I have said, there is no natural ap- 
petite in you for intoxicating beverages. There is 
nothing in your normal condition which leads you to 
want them. There is a curiosity that many young per- 
sons feel in regard to them. I remember that, from 
what I had read in the Bible and other books about 
wine, I had the impression that if I tasted it I should 
be lifted up to the seventh heaven, and I had a great 
curiosity to know how wine tasted. And finally I did 
taste it. But I was not lifted up by it as I expected 
I should be. And, since this curiosity exists, I cannot 



TEMPERANCE. 295 

say that if my child had heard of champagne, and 
wanted to taste it, I never would let him taste it. I 
think it very likely that if I did not he would gratify 
that curiosity, that abnormal desire, by stealth ; and it 
seems to me that, if he is going to know what it is, the 
knowledge had better be conveyed to him by parental 
revelation and teaching. And a child that has had 
one taste of it usually wants no more. And when 
young men have once tasted wine, and satisfied their 
curiosity about it, why should they continue taking it ? 
Though they do not like it, they are ashamed among 
their companions not to hold up their heads, and toss 
off a drink, just like any other man. They are ashamed 
to be deficient in so manly an accomplishment ! They 
are ashamed to stand up and say, " I do not relish it ; 
I do not need it, and I will not have it." They can- 
not bear the ridicule which such a declaration would 
subject them to. They are ashamed to have it thought 
that they cannot afford to have what rich and fashion- 
able people have ; and yet they cannot, and it is a lie 
for them to pretend that they can. You drink be- 
cause great men around you drink. The head of a 
great firm drinks, and so you a poverty-stricken clerk 
must drink ! And you are going to drink what fash- 
ionable people do — you, that have not a rag of fash- 
ion, and will not have for years to come. And you 
will do it, knowing that it is beyond your means, that 
it is contrary to good health, and inconsistent with 
manliness. For miserable, unmanly reasons of pride 
and vanity, you drink. You do not dare, going out 
at one o'clock at night, with half a dozen young fel- 
lows that have " the flush of health " on their faces, 



296 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

when they ask yon to step in and take some " bitters " 
with them, to refnse. Yon do not dare to meet their 
taunts and gibes. Yon do not dare, when yon hesitate 
and draw back, and they say, "What ! afraid? You 
are probably one of the virtuous young men that came 
from the country," to say, " Yes, I am ; and I intend 
to remain so." How many men are there that, in a 
matter vital to their virtue, to their good habits, and 
to their manliness, flinch, and go down before their 
companions, and drink what they do not like, and 
what they know is damaging to them, putting every- 
thing in peril, because they have not the manliness to 
say " No"! 

You go to a wedding, and the fair hands of the 
hospitable hostess present the cup to you ; and you 
say, " Of course, I must drink here." Oh ! that it 
were only just here ; but there are so many just heres ! 
Soon after comes the convivial entertainment ; and 
the same hands again present you with the cup ; and 
you drink again. Temptations follow at frequent in- 
tervals, and on each succeeding occasion you yield 
more easily than at the previous one. It does not 
make you a drunkard, but it weakens your power of 
standing on your conscience and manly independence, 
and saying, " Such things I disallow, and will not do." 
It is the beginning of that inclined plane down which 
you are preparing to slide. It is one of those ways 
which are pleasant, and which seem to be safe, but the 
ends of which are death. ' To stand in the blooming 
presence of beauty, and to be smiled upon, especially 
if the persons that smile upon you are a little higher 
in society than you are, they standing on five thousand, 



TEMPERANCE. 297 

while you stand on five hundred, is very flattering to 
your vanity. And if, having invited you, they offer 
you wine, and say, " You certainly will take it from 
me," you cannot refuse. You think, "If I am ad- 
mitted into that family, my prospects will be bright ; 
my fortune will be made." 

What a casuist the devil is when he wants to get 
people in his power ! How delicate he is ! How he 
makes the road to sin smooth and delightful ! 

So, under such beguiling influences, young men 
take the cup, and drink, and drink again, and drink 
many times. And many, under such circumstances, 
are ashamed of themselves ; they rebuke themselves ; 
they go home with an unquiet conscience ; they feel 
humbled ; and yet, they repeat the same round of dis- 
sipation again and again. And I put it to any man 
who has any self-respect, whether he ought to be 
cajoled or dragooned into using what he does not 
like, what does not like him, what exposes him to all 
possible perils, what is unfitted to his circumstances, 
and what is subversive of all his thoughts of man- 
hood? 

I am ashamed of a young man who cannot resist 
the temptation to drink. But it . is no less a peril ; 
and I warn every young man not to allow the customs 
of society to seduce him from a sober and matured 
purpose, to stand utterly clean and clear of this mis- 
chief. 

3. This is the great social battle of the age which 
we are fighting between the flesh and the spirit — 
between the animal and the man. We are living in a 
time when nothing can save us but moral principle in 



298 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

the individual. Our government is an equal govern- 
ment, as such. We have cast our lot with this 
great principle of popular government, and we must 
go up with it, or go down with it. It is for us to 
maintain our institutions, if they are maintained at 
all; and, unless we can teach individuals and the 
masses self-respect and self-control, we are utterly 
ruined. It is a mere matter of time. There is no 
salvation for institutions like ours except in the prin- 
ciple of self-control. And there is no single evil, so- 
cial or political, that strikes more at the foundation of 
such institutions than the drinking habits of society. 
If you corrupt the working-class by drink; if you 
corrupt the great middle-class by drink ; if you cor- 
rupt the literary and wealthy classes by drink, you 
have destroyed the commonwealth beyond your power 
to save it. And we are making battle for the preser- 
vation of this moral principle. It is the great patri- 
otic movement of the day. Therefore, we must have 
clear heads ; we must have right consciences ; we must 
have all the manhood that is in men, or the good that 
is in society will not be a match for the evil that is 
continually pulling it down. 

Now, young men, which side are you to take in 
this great struggle ? "Will you go for license ? Will 
you go for passion ? Will you go for corruption ? 
Or will you range yourselves on the side of those who 
are attempting to lift men up toward spirituality; 
toward true reason ; toward noble self-control ? You 
can afford to go but one way. Every young man who 
has one impulse of heroism, one generous tendency in 
him, ought in the beginning to take his ground beyond 



TEMPERANCE. 299 

all controversy, and say, " I work for those who work 
for the good and beautiful and true." 

4. You have no right to allow your example to 
seduce the weak. I have spoken of the effects of 
drinking habits on yourselves. Now comes an auxili- 
ary consideration. Even if you are not yourselves 
personally injured by drinking, your example injures 
others. 

I am aware that men oftentimes revolt from the 
application of this thought in regard to example, say- 
ing, " Man is independent. I am not bound to con- 
form to the vulgar opinions of ignorant men. I am 
not bound to take the pattern of my development 
from the undeveloped and uneducated below me. 
They must come to me. I shall not go to them." 

A man has a right to shock public opinion when- 
ever he is endeavoring to bring in a higher morality ; 
whenever there is a greater degree of refinement after 
which he is seeking; whenever custom is to be set 
aside, and a new and better state of things instituted. 
He is a moral coward who fears to do it under such 
circumstances. But you have no right to be content 
with simple conformity to custom, and to be indif- 
ferent to the effect of your example on those beneath 
you. There are many persons who are apt to consider 
themselves exempt from this duty of taking care that 
their example shall not be a stumbling-block, but a 
safe guide, to others. Those who are influentialby 
reason of wealth, or position, or culture, are wont to 
throw off the responsibility of their example ; but 
none more than they should watch their example with 
a conscientious regard for any who may be affected by 



300 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

it. In proportion as God has made you strong, either 
in your mental attainments or in your outward cir- 
cumstances, he lays on you the responsibility of the 
example which you set for those who are not so for- 
tunate as you are. 

A man cannot help being influenced by the ex- 
ample of those who occupy elevated positions in soci- 
ety. If a man is rich, and lives in splendor, his exam- 
ple will surely influence those by whom he is sur- 
rounded. And it is the duty of all that are endowed 
with the power of benefiting or injuring others by 
their example, to see that that example is beneficial, 
and not injurious. Those who are at the top of socie- 
ty are largely responsible for the ideas of those who 
are at the bottom. And if God has advanced you 
among men, it is not to give you more license, but 
to make you more careful of your example before 
others. No man has a right to let his example work 
mischief upon those in the midst of whom he moves. 
And the unfeeling indifference of men (and more, 
perhaps, in this matter of drinking than in any other) 
as to the welfare of their neighbors shows that their 
hearts have become seared by prosperity, and de- 
graded by the things which should, in the providence 
of God, have made them more tender and considerate, 

5. No man has a right to be neutral in the great 
work of temperance, in this age, and in this country. 
Every man, from considerations of personal saf ety 9 
from moral considerations, from considerations of his 
relations to his fellow-men in social life, and from con- 
siderations of patriotism or of state, ought to take sides 
in this matter, and let his position be known of all 



TEMPERANCE. 301 

men. It is too notorious to require any proof, that, to 
a very great extent, especially in the cities, our legis- 
lation begins in the grog-shop. The seed of judges 
is planted there. Our administrations spring out of 
the ooze and mud of drinking-holes. Our national 
councils are begun there. The machinery of gov- 
ernment is arranged there. There is no part of the 
community so active as that which lives in the indul- 
gence of the animal appetites ; and there is no part of 
the community which should be watched over with 
such sleepless vigilance by those who, by sound mo- 
rality and superior judgment, are fitted to wisely ad- 
minister the affairs of the nation. And the time has 
come when all good men, who have so long staid at 
home, and left the management of political affairs in 
the hands of dissipated and unscrupulous men, should 
come together, and take the side of purity and tem- 
perance. "We must produce a radical change in the 
public sentiment of the country on this vital question, 
or we shall be destroyed by the overwhelming deluge 
of the drinking habits of society. 

I have purposely avoided exaggerations in the 
discussion of this subject to-night. I have avoided 
the presentation of extravagant views. I have at- 
tempted to address myself to your reason. And, in 
closing, I desire to ask you two questions : 

First : Have I not presented considerations suffi- 
cient to make it every man's duty to think about this 
subject? If you have indulged yourself hitherto 
thoughtlessly and carelessly in drinking habits, is it 
not your duty to consider seriously whether it is not 
best for you to become a total abstainer from every- 



302 LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN. 

thing that is intoxicating ? If your example in this 
matter has been such as to lead others into temptation, 
ought you not to consider the propriety of reviewing 
your course, and so rectifying it that it shall be a 
blessing, and not a curse, to your fellow-men ? 

The second question which I desire to ask is, 
whether it is not your duty to decide this question on 
strictly moral grounds ? I do not say to men, " You 
shall never drink wine or ardent spirits." I say to 
them, " Ought you not to make a decision on this 
subject ? And ought you not to make that decision 
on moral grounds? Is not this a matter that you 
ought to consider, not only in the light of your own 
personal welfare, but also in the light of your rela- 
tions to individuals with whom you come in contact, 
to the community in which you live, and to the na- 
tion to which you belong ? " 

I can well understand how a man may, on his 
death-bed, look back upon his career in life, and say, 
" I am sorry that I ever touched the cup " ; but I can- 
not understand how any man can, on his death-bed, 
look back and say, " I am sorry that I have always 
been abstemious of the cup." There is one way that 
you know is safe, and honorable, and proper as re- 
gards others ; but the other way, even if it is possible 
for it to be safe, is one in which there are a hundred 
chances to one that, directly or indirectly, it will be 
mischievous — if not to you, to others. 

Can you form a decision on such a subject as this, 
and not take into consideration these great verities ? 
And are you that are safe justified in taking the first 
steps in a course which is so full of peril ? How much 



TEMPERANCE. 303 

wiser and better it will be for you, whose lips are still 
clean, to go through life with them undefiled ! Do 
this, and you will have reason all through your life to 
thank God that in your early days you were induced 
to take a stand of strict, invariable temperance. Tem- 
perance will do you no harm. In a thousand ways, it 
will do you good. Even occasional drinking will do 
you no good ; and entire abstinence from drinking 
will do you no harm. 

Take the right side ; the manly side ; the patriotic 
side. God help you and keep you. And by-and-by, 
may there come from the lips of many a man who 
hears me to-night this testimony : " I thank God that 
I heard that sermon by Mr. Beecher on that Sunday 
night. It saved me. It caused me to live a better 
life. 



THE END, 



Studies in the Creative Week. 

By Rev. GEORGE D. BOARDMAN, D. D. 
1 vol., 12mo. - Cloth, $1.25. 



The Lectures, fourteen in number, embrace the following topics : 1. Introduction ; 
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the Lands ; 7. Of Plants ; 8. Of the Luminaries ; 9. Of Animals ; 10. Of Man ; 
11. Of Eden; 12. Of Women; 13. Of the Sabbath; 14. Palingenesis. 

" We see in the Lectures more than the sensation of the hour. They will 
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both to disciple and to skeptic just what is to be held against all attack ; and the 
statement of the case will be in many cases the strongest argument. They 
will tend to broaden the minds of believers, and to lift them above the letter to 
the plane of the spirit. They will show that truth and religion are capable of 
being defended without violence, without denunciation, without misrepresen- 
tation, without the impugning of motives. 1 '— National Baptist. 

"Revelation and Science can not really conflict, because 'truth can not be 
contrary to truth ; ' but so persistent have been the attacks of scientists on time- 
honored orthodoxy, that the believer in Revelation has long demanded an ex- 
haustive work ou the first chapter of Genesis. In response to this widespread 
feeling, the Rev. George Dana Board man, D. D.,,the learned pastor of the First 
Baptist Church, Philadelphia, was requested to deliver a course of lectures cov- 
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HISTORY OF OPINIONS 



Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution. 

By EDWARD BEECHER, D. D„ 

Author of " The Conflict of Ages." 

1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1.25. 



The momentous question of future retribution is here historically discussed 
with an earnestness and deliberation due to its transcendent importance. The 
main interest of the inquiry naturally centers in the doom of the wicked. Will 
it be annihilation ? ultimate restoration to holiness and happiness ? endless 
punishment ? or is it out of our power to decide which of these views is the 
truth? The discussion is intensified by being narrowed to the meaning of a 
single word, aionios. The opinions of those to whom Christ spoke, and how 
they understood him, are vital questions in the argument; and, to solve them, 
the opinions and modes of speech of preceding ages must be attentively weighed, 
for each age is known to have molded the opinions and use of words of its 
successor. Hence, Dr. Beecherhas found himself compelled to "trace the de- 
velopment of thought and language from the outset to the clays of Christ, then 
to inquire into the import of his words, in the light of all preceding ages ; and, 
lastly, to trace the development of opinion downward through the Christian 
ages." 

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MODEL PRAYER 

By GEORGE D. BOARDMAN, D. D., 



Author of "The Creative Week." 



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brought to his task more than this ; the power of analysis by which he has penetrated 
the deeper and more hidden meaning of the prayer, so that the book becomes in a 
strong sense a book of devotion. It is not possible that it should not be widely read, 
and wherever read it will bring comfort, help, and delight. 1 ' — N. Y. Examiner and 
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" An earnest, devout boos, excellently written and truly edifying."— N. Y. Evening 
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"This prayer, short as it is, contains such an inexhaustible number of suggestions 
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" A most scholarly, enthusiastic, and interesting consideration of the deep and won- 
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"The book is an exhaustive treatise upon its fruitful theme; few will gainsay the 
author's profound study of his subject or question the sincerity of his views. The 
chapter on temptation is one of the most original and striking interpretations of this 
line of the prayer that has been presented. The book is one that will have more than 
a passing interest."— N. Y. Herald. 



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THE 

ENGLISH REFORMATION: 

HOW IT CAME ABOUT AND WHY WE SHOULD 
UPHOLD IT. 

BY 

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Author of " The Life and Words of Christ." 

WITH A PR-FACE BY THE AUTHOR FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



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OR, 

HOW TO MAKE HOMES HAPPY, 



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HEALTH PRIMERS. 

EDITED BY 

J. LANGDON DOWN, M. D., F. R. C. P. 
HENRY POWER, M. B., F. R. C. S. 
J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE, M. D. 
JOHN TWEEDY, F. R. C. S. 

THOUGH it is of the greatest importance that books upon health 
should be in the highest degree trustworthy, it is notorious that most 
of the cheap and popular kind are mere crude compilations of incom- 
petent persons, and are often misleading and injurious. Impressed by 
these considerations, several eminent medical and scientific men of Lon- 
don have combined to prepare a series of Health Primers of a character 
that shall be entitled to the fullest confidence. They are to be brief, 
simple, and elementary in statement, filled with substantial and useful 
information suitable for the guidance of grown-up people. Each primer 
will be written by a gentleman specially competent to treat his subject, 
while the critical supervision of the books is in the hands of a committee 
who will act as editors. 

As these little books are produced by English authors, they are 
naturally based very much upon English experience, but it matters little 
whence illustrations upon such subjects are drawn, because the essential 
conditions of avoiding disease and preserving health are to a great degree 
everywhere the same. 

VOLUMES OF THE SERIES. 



Exercise and Training 1 . (Illus- 
trated.) 
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The House and its Surround- 
ings. 

Premature Death: Its Promo- 
tion or Prevention. 

Personal Appearances in 
Health and Disease. (Illus- 
trated.) 

Baths and Bathing:. 



The Heart and its Functions. 

The Head. 

Clothing' and Dress. 

Water. 

The Skin and its Troubles. 

Fatigue and Pain. 

The Ear and Hearing:. 

The Eye and Vision. 

Temperature in Health and 
Disease. 



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HEALTH, 



HOW TO PROMOTE IT 



By RICHARD McSHERRY, M. D., 

Professor of Principles and Practice of Medicine, University of Maryland ; Member ( 
American Medical Association; President of Ealtimore Academy of Medicine. 



Extract from Preface. 

" Hygiene, public and private, has become, of late years, one of the 
most important elements of modern civilization. It is a subject in which 
all mankind has an interest, even if it be, as it too often is, an uncon- 
scious interest. 

" The present work is addressed to the general reader, no matter 
what his pursuit, and the language is such as any physician may use in 
conversation with an intelligent patient ; it is therefore as free as such a 
work can be made from scientific technicalities. 

" It is offered as a contribution to a great cause, and the writer trusts 
that it will have some influence in promoting the health, happiness, and 
welfare of all who may honor it with a careful perusal. The principles 
advocated have been, to a great extent, put in practice in the personal 
experience of the writer in various parts of the world, and under many 
vicissitudes, and he has found them to be not vague theories, but prac- 
tical truths of the greatest importance." 



<K 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
Hygiene the Better Part of Medicine.— The Four Divisions of Human Life: The 
First Quarter, or the First Score of Years. The Young Man ; the Young 
Woman. The Man ; the Woman. The Declining or Old Man. 

PART IL- HYGIENICS IN SOME DETAIL. 
Race, Temperaments, and Idiosyncrasies.— Inheritance.— Habit.— Constitution. 
—The Air we Breathe.— Sewers and Cesspools.— Ozone.— Malaria.— Animal 
Emanations. — Devitalized House- Air. — Water. — Clothing. — Exercise or 
Work.— Influence of Occupation upon Longevity. — Limit" to Labor.— The 
Food of Man. — Accessory Food.— Manner of Eatinsr.— Tea and Coftee.— Al- 
cohol.— Use and Abuse.— Ardent Spirits.— Wiues.— Malt-Liquors.— Tobacco. 
—Chewing and Smoking should be forbidden in School.— Report of Naval 
Surgeons. 



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